m'-''^ 

"-v-^ L.'^ 




^^HH: LITi 


, .. s J- .•„ .>, 


' ' 




''■;:?n.";- ; 








APPLETONS' SCHOOL READERS, 

Consisting of Five Books. 

By WM. T, HARRIS, LL. D., Sup't of.Schools, St. Louis, Mo. 
A. J. RICK OFF, A. M., Sup't of Instruction, Cleveland, O. 
MARK BAILEY, A. M., Instructor in Elocution, Yale College. 



Appletons' First Reader. 90 pages. Price. 23 cents. 
Appletons' Second Reader. 142 pages. Price, 37 cents. 
Appletons' Third Reader. 214 pages. Price, 48 cents. 
Appletons' Fourth Reader. 248 pages. Price, 64 cents. 
Appletons' Fifth Reader. 471 pages. Price, $1.15. 



E 

A 
1 
1 
F 
T 

phon 
T 

cntir 



LIBRAR/-OFCOHGRE 

mm 

UNITED STATE.S C 



I s, and 
h the 



46 Numbers. Price, complete, with Supporter, f 10.00. 

STANDARD SUPPLEMENTARY READERS. 

Edited by "Wilt.iam Swintgn and Geoege E. Cathcaet. 
T. Easy Steps for Little Feet. 80 cents. 
II. Golden Book of Choice Reading. 35 cents. 

III. Book of Tales. 58 cents. 

IV. Pveadings in Nature's Book. 7.5 cents. 
V. Seven American Classics. 50 cents. 

VI. Seven British Classics. 58 cents. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



Appletons' Elementary Reading Charts. 

FORTY-SIX NUMBERS. 
Prepared by REBECCA D. RICKOFF. 



Designed to make learning to read a pleasant pastime. 

Designed to cultivate the observing powers of children. 

Designed to teach the tirst steps of reading in the ri(/ht 
way. 

Designed to train the mind of the child by pliilosophical 
methods. 

Designed to furnish the primary classes with a variety of 
interesting occupations in scliool-hours. 

Every step in advance is in a logical order of progression 
and development. 

Pictures, objects, and things are employed, rather than ab- 
stract rules and naked type. 

The beautiful and significant illustrations are an especially 
noticeable and attractive feature of these charts. 

Every chart in the series has in view a definite object, which 
is thoroughly and systematically developed. 

They arc in accord with the educational spirit of the day, 
and with the methods followedH;y the best instructor,-.. 

They are the only charts planned with special reference to 
the cultivation of fmicfiiage and the power of expression. 

They follow the natural method of teaching, apiiealing to 
those faculties of the child that are most easily awakened, and 
inciting correct mental processes at the outset. 

These charts introduce a new and improved mode of sus- 
pension while in use, a feature of much practieal value. 

These Charts should be in every Primary-school 
Room in the Country. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street 



\ 



LITERATURE PRIMER, edUed 

by John Richard Green, M. A. 
ENGLISH, 



EdtUii by John Richard Green, M.A. 

ENGLISH 

LITERATURE 



BY THE 

REV. STOPFORD BROOKE, M.A. 



NEW EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED. 



WITH AN APPENDIX ON AMERICAN LITER A TC/RE, 

By J. HARRIS PATTON, M.A., 

AUTHOR OF THE "CONCISE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE," "NATU- 
RAL RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES," ETC. 

NEW YORKv ^^v-orw 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

I, 3, AND S BOND STREET. 

1882. 




o^ 



COPYRIGHT BY 

D, APPLETON & COMPANY, 

1879. 



COPYRIGHT BY 

D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 
i282. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER 1. 

PAGE 
WRITERS BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 67O 

1066 5 

CHAPTER II. 

FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER's DEATH, 

1066 — 1400 22 

CHAPTER III. 

FROM CHAUCER, I4OO, TO ELIZABETH, 1 5 59 . 50 

CHAPTER IV. 

FROM 1559 TO 1603 71 

CHAPTER V. 

FROM ELIZABETH'S DEATH TO THE RESTORATION, 

1603 — 1660 108 

CHAPTER VI. 

FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF 

POPE AND SWIFT, 1660 1 745 I 25 

CHAPTER VII. 

PROSE LITERATURE FROM DEATH OF POPE 
AND SWIFT TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 
AND FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO 
DEATH OF SCOTT, 1745— 1S32 I45 

CHAPTER VIII. 

POETRY, FROM I73O — I S3 2 I $8 

CHAPTER IX. 

AMERICAN LITERATURE, FROM 1647— 1883 ... 1 86 



PRIMER 



V 



OF 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

CHAPTER I. 

WRITERS BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 670 — 1066. 

1 . Continental Poems. — The Traveller s Song. — Dear's Complaint. 

The Fight at Finnesburg. — Beo7vulf, before 600. 

2. Poems in England. — (I'x.diVsxovL's, Paraphrase, 670- — Judith. — 

Cynevvulf s Poems, and others in Exeter and Vercelli books. 
— Odes in A. S. Chronicle. — Sono of Dricnanburh, 937- 
—Fight at Maldon, 991. 
3 Prose. — Bieda's translation of St. John, 735- — l^in.i,' 
/lUfred's work during his two limes of peace, 880 — 893 and 
897— 901— ^FJfdc's prose works, 990— 995-- Wulfstan's 
work, \\)^l—\^2,Z-— The English Chronicle, ends 1154- 

I. The History of English Literature is the 
story of what great English men and women thought 
and felt, and then wrote down in good prose and 
beautiful poetry in the English language. The story 
is a long one. It begins in England about the year 
670, it begins still earlier on the Continent, in the old 
Angle- Land, and it is still going on in the year 1879. 
Into this little book then is to be put the story of 
more than 1,200 years of the thoughts, feelings, and 
imagination of a great people. Every English man 
and woman has good reason to be proud of the work 
('one by their forefathers in prose and poetry. Every 



6 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

one who can write a good book or a good song may 
say to himself, '* I belong to a noble company, which 
has been teaching and delighting the world for more 
than i,ooo years." And that is a fact in which 
those who write and those who read English literature 
ought to feel a noble pride. 

2. The English and the Welsh. — This litera- 
ture is written in English, the tongue of our fathers. 
They lived, while this island of ours was still called 
Britain, in Sleswick, Jutland, and Holstein ; but, either 
because they were pressed from the inland, or for 
pure love of adventure, they took to the sea, and, 
landing at various parts of Britain at various times, 
drove back, after 150 years of hard fighting, the 
Britons, whom they called Welsh, to the land now 
called Wales, and to Cornwall. It is well for those 
who study English literature to remember that in 
these two places the Britons remained as a distinct 
race with a distinct literature of their own, because 
the stories and the poetry of the Britons crept after- 
wards into English literature and had a great influence 
upon it. The whole tale of King Arthur, of which 
English poetry and even English prose is so full, was 
a British tale. The imaginative work of the conquered 
afterwards took captive their fierce conquerors. 

3. The English Tongue. — Of the language 
in which our literature is written we can say little 
here ; it is fully discussed in the Primer of English 
Grammar. Of course it has changed its look very 
much since it began to be written. The earliest form 
of our English tongue is very different from modern 
English in form, pronunciation, and appearance, and 
one must learn it almost as if it were a foreign tongue ; 
but still the language written in the year 700 is the 
same as that in which the prose of the Bible is written, 
just as much as the tree planted a hundred years ago 
is the same tree to-day. It is this sameness of lan- 
guage, as well as the sameness of national spirit, 



1.] EARLY IV R ITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 7 

which makes our literature one literature for 1,200 
years. 

4. Old English Poetry was also different in 
form from what it is now. It was not written in rime, 
nor were its syllables counted. Its essential elements 
were accent and alliteration,^ Every long verse is 
divided into two half verses by a pause, and has four 
accented syllables, while the number of unaccented 
syllables is indifferent. These half verses are linked 
together by alliteration. Two accented syllables in 
the first half, and one in the second, begin with vowels 
(generally different vowels) or with the same con- 
sonant. Here is one example from a war song : — 

" fFigu wnntrum geong | ^ordum mxlde. 

Warrior of winters young | With words spake." 

There is often only one alliterative letter in the first 
half verse. Sometimes there are more accents than 
four, but for the most part they do not exceed five 
in an ordinary long line. Sometimes in subjects 
requiring a more solemn or a more passionate treat- 
ment a metre is used in which unaccented syllables 
are regularly introduced, and the number of accented 
syllables also increased, and there are instances in 
which terminal rimes are employed. The metres are 
therefore varied, though not arbitrarily. But how- 
ever they are varied, they are built on the simple 
original type of four accents and three alliterative 
syllables. 

The emphasis of the words depends on the thought. 
Archaic forms and words are used, and metaphorical 
phrases and compound words, such as war-adder for 
arrow, or the whale' s-path for the sea, or gold-friend 
of ?ne?i for king. A great deal of parallelism, such as 
we find in early poetry, prevails. 'Fhe same statement 
or thought is repeated twice in different words. "Then 

1 See, for the whole of this, Mr. Sweet's Afr^lo-Saxon Reader ^ 
p. xcviii. Clarendon I'ress Series. 



8 ENGLISH LITERATURE, [chap. 

saw they the sea head lands, the whidy walls." The 
poetry is nevertheless very concise and direct. Much 
more attention is paid to the goodness of the matter 
than to the form. Things are said in the shortest way ; 
there are scarcely any similes, and the metaphorical 
expressions are rare. We see in this the English 
character. 

After the Norman conquest there gradually crept in 
a French system of rimes and of metres and accent, 
which we find full-grown in Chaucer's works. But 
unrimed and alliterative verse lasted in poetry to the 
reign of John, was revived in the days of Edward III. 
and Richard II., and alUteration was blended with rime 
up to the sixteenth century. The latest form of it occurs 
in Scotland. 

5. The First English Poems. — Our fore- 
fathers, while as yet they were heathen and lived on 
the Continent, made poems, and of this Continental 
poetry we possess a few remains. The earliest per- 
haps is the Song of the Traveller^ written, it seems 
likely, in the fifth century by a man who had lived in 
the fourth. It is not much more than a catalogue of 
names and of the places whither the minstrel went 
with the Goths ; but where he expands, he shows so 
pleasant a pride in his profession, that he wins our 
sympatliy. Deor's Complaint is another of these 
poems. The writer is a bard at the court of the 
Heodenings, from whom his foe takes by craft his 
goods. He writes this complaint to comfort his 
heart. *' Weland (the great smith of the Eddas) and 
the kings of the Goths suffered and bore their weird, 
and so may I. The All-wise Lord of the World work- 
eth many changes." This is the general argument, 
and it is the first touch of the sad fatalism which 
belongs to English poetry. The Fight at Finnesburg 
is the third fragment. It tells of the attack on Fin's 
palace in Friesland, and the whole story of which it 
is a part is alluded to in Beowulf. Of all the Old 



I.] EARLY WRITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 9 

English battle descriptions, it is the most full of the 
fire and fierceness of war, and it completes, with two 
fragments of the epic of Waldhere, and with Beowulf ^ 
the list of the English poetry written on the Con- 
tinent. 

6. Beowulf is our Old English epic, and it recounts 
the great deeds and death of Beowulf. It may have 
been written before the English conquest of Britain, in 
the fifth century. The scenery is laid among the Goths 
of Sweden and the Danes, and there is no mention of 
our England. It was probably wrought into an epic 
out of short poems about the hero, and as we have it, 
was edited, with Christian elements introduced into 
it, by a Northumbrian poet, probably in the eighth 
century. 

The story is of Hrothgar, one of the kingly race of 
Jutland, who builds his hall, Heorot, near the sea, 
on the edge of the moorland. A monster called 
Grehdel, half-human, half-fiend, dwells in the moor 
close to the sea, and hating the festive noise, carries 
off thirty of the thanes of Hrothgar and devours them. 
After twelve years of this misery, Beowulf, thane of 
Hygelac, sails from Sweden to bring help to Hrothgar, 
and at night, when Grendel breaks into the hall, 
wrestles with him, and tears away his arm, and the 
fiend flies away to die. His mother avenges his death 
the next night, and Beowulf descends into her sea- 
cave and slays her also, and then returns to Hygelac. 
The second part of the poem opens with Beowulf as 
king in his own land, ruling well, until a fire-drake, 
who guards a treasure, is robbed and comes from his 
den to harry and burn the country. The old king 
goes forth then to fight his last fight, slays the dragon, 
but dies of its fiery breath, and the poem closes with 
the tale of his burial, burned on a lofty pyre on the 
top of Hronesnaes. 

Its social interest lies in what it tells us of the man- 
mers and customs of our forefathers before they came 



lo ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

to England. Their mode of life in peace and war is 
described ; their ships, their towns, the scenery in 
which they lived, their feasts, amusements — we have 
the account of a whole day from morning to night — 
their women and the reverence given them, the way 
in which they faced death, in which they sang, in 
which they gave gifts and rewards. And the whole is 
told with Homeric directness and simplicity. A deep 
fatalism broods over it, but a manly spirit fills the 
fatalism. "Sorrow not," says Beowulf to Hrothgar, 
'* it is better for every man to avenge his friend than 
to mourn greatly. Each of us must abide his end. 
Let him who can, work high deeds ere he die. So, 
when he lies lifeless, it will be best for the warrior." 
Out of the fatalism naturally grows the stern and 
simple pathos of the poem. It is most poetical in the 
quick force with which the story is realised and pic- 
tured, and in its grave truth to humanity. The descrip- 
tions of the sea and of wild nature are instinct with the 
same spirit which fills our modern poetry, and there 
still lingers among us that nature worship of our 
fathers which in Beowulf made dreadful and lonely 
places seem dwelt in — as if the places had a spirit — 
by monstrous beings. In the creation of Grendel 
and his mother, the savage stalkers of the moor, that 
half-natural, half-supernatural world began, which, 
when men grew gentler and the country more culti- 
vated, became so beautiful as fairyland. Here is the 
description of the dwelling-place of Grendel: — 

" Dark is the land 
Where they dwell : windy nesses, and holds of the wolf: 
The wild path of the fen where the stream of the wood 
Through the fog of the sea-cliffs falls downward in flood. 
'Meath the earth is the flood, and not further from here 
Than one metes out a mile, is the -iiarsh of the moor, 
And the trees o'er it waving outreach and hang over ; 
And root fast is the wood that the water o'erhelms. 
There the wonder is great that one shuddering sees 
Every ni;ht in the flooci is a fire." 



I J EARLY WRITERS TO THE CONQUE:,T. ii 

The whole poem, Pagan as it is, is English to its 
very root. It is sacred to us, our Genesis, the book 
of our origins. 

7. Christianity and English Poetry. — When 
we came to Drilaiii we were great warriors and great 
sea pirates — ** sea wolves," as a l\oman poet calls us ; 
and all our poetry down to the present day is full of 
war, and still more of the sea. No nation has ever 
written so much sea-poetry. But we were more than 
mere warriors. We were a home-loving people when 
we got settled either in Sleswick- or in England, and 
all our literature from the first writings to the last is 
full of domestic love, the dearness of home, and the 
ties of kinsfolk. We were a religious people, even as 
heathen, still more so when we became Christian, and 
cur poetry is as much of religion as of war. With 
Christianity a new spirit entered into English poetry. 
The w^ar spirit did not decay, but into the songs steals 
a softer element. The fatalism is modified by the 
faith that the fate is the will of a good God. The 
pathos is not less, but it is relieved by an onlook of 
joy. The triumph over enemies is not less exulting, 
but even more, for it is the triumph of God over His 
foes that is sung by Caedmon and Cynewulf. Nor is 
the imaginative delight in legends and in the super- 
natural less. But it is now found in the legends of the 
saints, in the miracles and visions that ]i?eda tells of 
the Christian heroes, in fantastic allegories of spiritual 
things, like the poems of the Phccnix and the Whale. 
The love of nature lasted, but it dwells now rather on 
gentle than on savage scenery. The human sorrow 
for the hardness of life is more tender, and when the 
poems speak of the love of home, it is with an added 
grace. One little bit still lives for us out of the older 
world. " Dear is the welcome guest to the Frisian 
wife when the vessel strands ; the ship is come and 
her husband to his house, her own provider. And she 
welcomes him in, washes his weedy garment, and 
9 



12 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

clothes him anew. It is pleasant on shore to him 
whom his love awaits." If that was the soft note of 
home in a pagan land, it was softer still when Christi- 
anity had mellowed manners. Yet, with all this, the 
faith of Woden still influences the Christian song. 
Christ, is not only the Saviour, but the Hero who 
goes forth against the dragon. His overthrow of 
the fiends is described in much the same terms as 
that of Beowulf's wresthng with Grendeh "Bitterly 
grim, gripped them in his wrath." The death of 
Christ, at which the universe trembles and weeps, is 
like the death of Balder. The old poetry penetrated 
the new, but the spirit of the new transformed that of 
the old. 

8. Csedmon. — The poem of Beowulf has the 
grave Teutonic power, but it is not native to our soil. 
It is not the first true English poem. That is the 
work of C^DMON, and it was made in Northumbria. 
The story of it, as told by Bi^da, proves that the 
making of songs was common at the time. Caedmon 
was a servant to the monastery of Hild, an abbess of 
royal blood, at Whitby in Yorkshire. He was some- 
what aged when the gift of song came to him, and he 
knew nothing of the art of verse, so that at the feasts 
when for the sake of mirth all sang in turn he left the 
table. One night, having done so and gone to the 
stables, for he had care of the cattle, he fell asleep, 
and One came to him in vision and said, '' Caedmon, 
sing me some song." And he answered, "I cannot 
sing; for this cause I left the feast and came hither." 
Then said the other, " However, you shall sing." 
"What shall I sing?" he replied. "Sing the begin- 
ning of created things," answered the other. Where- 
upon he began to sing verses to the praise of God, 
and, awaking, remembered what he had sung, and 
added more in verse worthy of God. In the morning 
he came to the steward, and told him of the gift he 
,had received, and, being brought to Hild, was ordered 



I.] EARLY WRITERS TO THE COXQUEST. 13 

to tell his dream before learned men, that they might 
give judgment whence liis verses came. And when 
they had heard, they all said that heavenly grace had 
been conferred on him by our I.ord. 

9. Caedmon's Poem, written about 670, is for 
us the beginning of English poetry in England, and 
the story of its origm ought to be loved by us. Nor 
should we fail to reverence the place where it began. 
Above the small and land-locked harbour of Whitby, 
rises and juts out towards the sea the dark cliff 
where Hild's monastery stood, looking out over the 
German Ocean. It is a wild, wind-swept upland, and 
the sea beats furiously beneath, and standing there 
we feel that it is a fitting birthplace for the poetry 
of the sea-ruling nation. Nor is the verse of the first 
poet without the stormy note of the scenery among 
which it was written, nor without the love of the stars 
or the dread of the waste land that Caedmon saw from 
Whitby Head. 

Caedmon paraphrased the history of the Old and 
New Testament. He sang the creation of the world, 
the history of Israel, the book of Daniel, the whole 
story of the life of Christ, future judgment, purga- 
tory, hell, and heaven. All who heard it thought 
it divinely given. " Others after him," says Boeda, 
*' tried to make religious poems, but none could vie 
with him, for he did not learn the art of poetry from 
men, nor of men, but from God." 

The interest of the poem is not found in the telling 
of the Scripture story, but in those parts of it which 
are the invention of Ci^dmon, in the drawing of the 
characters, in the passages instinct with the genius of 
our race, and \\\ those which reveal the individuality 
of the [joet. The fall of the angels and the Hell, and 
the proud and angry cry of Satan against God from 
his bed of chains, are fud of fierce war-rage, while the 
contrasts drawn between tiie pjace of heaven and the 
swart horror of hell have the same kind of pathos as 



14 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Milton's work on the same subject. The pleasure of 
the northern imagination in swiftness and in joy is as 
well marked as its pleasure in wild freedom, in dark 
pride, and in revenge. The burst of fierce and joyous 
vengeance when the fiend succeeds in his temptation 
is magnificent. There is true dramatic power in the 
dialogue between Eve and Satan, and between Eve 
and Adam, and there is in the whole scene of the 
temptation a subtle quaHty of thought which we do 
not expect. It is characteristic of Old-England that 
the motives of the woman for eating the fruit are all 
good, and the passionate and tender conscientiousness 
of the scene of the repentance is equally characteristic 
of the gentler and religious side of the Teutonic 
character. " Dark and true and tender is the North." 
This is the really great part of the poem. The rest^ 
with the exception of the Flood, the Battle of Abraham 
with Chedorlaomer, and the passage of the Red Sea, 
is so dull that I believe the work of the original poet 
was filled up by other hands. ^ However that may be, 
in this poem, our native English poetry begins with a 
religious poem, and it gave birth to many children. 

lo. English Poetry after Csedmon was partly 
secular, but chiefly religious. The secular poetry was 
sung about the country, but the increase of monasteries 
where men of letters lived, naturally made the written 
poetry religious. AVhat remains is chiefly contained in 
two collections, the " Exeter Book " and the " Vercelli 
Book," both named from the places where the manu- 
scripts now are preserved. 

During the short period when literature flourished 
in the South at the end of the seventh century, Eng- 
lish poetry is there connected with the name of 
Ealdhelm. a young man when Caedmon died, and 

^ Sievers has lately tried to show ("conclusively," says Mr. 
Sweet) that a great portion of the Paraphrase is a translation 
from an old Saxon original, perhaj s hy the author of the 
Heliand. 



I.] EARLY UK ITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 15 

afterwards Abbot of Malmesbury, he united the song- 
maker to the rehgious poet. He was a skilled musi- 
cian, and it is said that he had not his ecjual in the 
making or singing of English verse. His songs were 
popular in King /Elfred's time, and a pretty story 
tells, that when the traders came into the town on the 
Sunday, he, in the character of a gleeman, stood on 
the bridge and sang them songs, with which he inter- 
mingled Scripture texts and teaching. 

But the English poetry which died in the South 
grew rapidly in Northumbria after Ccedmon's death. 
We do not know the date nor the writer of Judith^ 
but it belongs to the best time. It was found in the 
same MS. as Beowulf, and of the twelve books in 
which it was originally written, we only possess the 
three last, which tell of the banquet of Holofernes, 
his death, and the attack of the Jews on the Assyrian 
camp. The language is carefully wrought, the verse 
varied and musical, the action dramatic, and swiftly 
brought to its conclusion. It is really a poem of war, 
and full of the fire of war. 

1 1. Cynewulf, the greatest of these northern poets, 
has left us both secular and religious poems. His 
name is given in a itw of the pieces in the Exeter and 
Vercelli books. But it is very probable that he was 
the writer of several of the anonymous poems. He 
seems to have been a minstrel at the court of one of 
the Northumbrian kings, and to have been exiled by 
one of the wars of the eighth century. He was then, 
he says, a frivolous and sinful man, and during this 
period he wrote the lyric pieces attributed to him. 
Of these the Wanderer, and the Wife's Complaint, 
and the Ruin (if we may allot this lovely fragment 
to him), are full of regret and yearning, in exile 
and solitude, for the lost beauty and happiness of his 
world, while the Seafarer breathes the same fasci- 
nation for the sea which filled the veins of our fore- 
fathers while they sang and sailed, and which is 



i6 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chaf. 

strangely re-echoed, even to the very note of Cyne- 
wulf's song, in Tennyson's Sailor Boy. The RiddleSy 
of which this poet wrote a great number, show how 
closely and with what love he observed natural beauty. 
But a change came over him in his old age, and he 
devoted himself wholly to religious poetry. The 
Drea?n of the Cross, m which he teils the vision which 
wrought this change, is a piece of great beauty. It is 
prefixed to the Elene, or the Finding of the Cross ^ 
which with the Crist and the Passion of St. Juliana^ 
are Cynewulfs hymns on the threefold coming of 
Christ. The evidence of style is relied on to attri- 
bute also to Cynewulf the Life of St. Giidlac, (two- 
poems, on the Life and Death, put into one, the Life 
probably not by Cynewulf), the descriptive poem of 
the Phosnijc, and the lyrics mentioned above. He 
may also have written the Andreas, which relates 
the adventures of St. Andrew among the cannibal 
Marmedonians. 

Didactic and G?iomic Poe?ns, metrical translations of 
the Psalms, and metrical hymns and prayers, fill up 
the rest of the Exeter and Vercelli books. One fine 
fragment in which Death speaks to man, and describes 
the low and hateful and doorless house of which he 
keeps the key, does not belong to these books, and 
with the few English verses Baeda made when he was 
dying, tells us how stern was the thought of our 
fathers about the grave. But stern as these fragments 
are, the Old-English religious poetry always passes on 
to dwell on a brighter world. Thus we are told, in 
the Ode in the Saxon Chronicle, that King Eadgar 
" left this weak life, and chose for himself another light, 
sweet and fair." 

12. The War Poetry of England at this time 
in Northumbria was probably as plentiful as the 
religious, but it was not likely to be written down by 
the men of letters in the monasteries. It is only when 
literature travelled southwards in Alfred's time, that 



1.] EARLY WRITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 17 

we find any written war songs, and of these there are 
only two, the Song of Bninafiburh^ 938, and the Song 
of the Fight at Ma/don, 998. They are noble poems, 
the fitting sources, both in their short and rapid lines, 
and in their simplicity and force, of such war songs as 
the Battle of the Bait c and the Charge of the Light 
Brigade. The first, composed expressly for the 
Chronicle, and inserted in it instead of the usual prose 
entry, describes the fight of King ."luhelstan Avith 
Anlaf the Dane. From morn till night they fought 
till they were "weary of red battle in the hard hand 
play," till five young kings and seven earls of Anlafs 
host lay in that fighting place " quieted by swords," 
and the Northmen fled, and only " the screamers 
of war were left behind, the black raven and the 
eagle to feast on the white flesh, and the greedy 
battle-hawk, and the grey beast the wolf in the 
wood." The second is the story of the death of 
Brihtnoth, an ealdorman of Northumbria, in battle 
against the Danes. It contains 690 lines. In the 
speeches of heralds and warriors before the fight, in 
the speeches and single combats of the chiefs, in the 
loud laugh and mock which follow a good death- 
stroke, in the rapid rush of the verse when the battle 
is joined, the poem, though broken, as Homer's verse 
is not, is Homeric. In the rude chivalry which dis- 
dains to take vantage ground of the Danes, in the way 
in which the friends and churls of Brihtnoth die one 
by one, avenging their lord, keeping faithful the tie of 
kinship and clanship, in the cry not to yield a foot's 
breadth of earth, in the loving sadness with which 
home is spoken of, the poem is English to the core. 
And in the midst of it all, like a song from another 
land, but a song heard often in English fights from 
then till now, is the last prayer of the great earl, 
when dying he commends his soul with thankfulness 
to God. 

Two short odes, among several small poems 



iS ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

inserted in the Chronicle, one on the deliverance of 
five cities fi-om tlie Danes by King Eadmund, 942 ; 
and another on the coronation of King Eadgar, are 
the last records of a war poetry which naturally de- 
cayed when the English were trodden down by the 
Normans. When Taillefer rode into battle at Hastings, 
singing songs of Roland and Charlemagne, he sang 
more than the triumph of the Norman over the Eng- 
lish ; he sang the victory for a time of French Romance 
over Old- English poetry. 

13. Old English Prose. — It is pleasant to think 
that I may not unfairly make English prose begin 
with B^DA. He was born about a.d. 673, and was, 
Hke Ctedmon, a Northumbrian. After 683, he spent 
his hfe at Jarrow, "in the same monastery," he says, 
"and while attentive to the rule of mine order, and 
the service of the Church, my constant pleasure lay 
in learning, or teaching, or writing." He enjoyed that 
pleasure for many years, for his quiet life was long, 
and his toil was unceasing from boyhood till he 
died. Forty-five works prove his industry ; and their 
fame over the whole of learned Europe during his 
time proves their value. His learning was as various as 
it was great. All that the world then knew of science, 
music, rhetoric, medicine, arithmetic, astronomy, and 
physics were brought together by him ; and his life was 
as gentle, and himself as loved, as his w^ork was great. 
His books Avere written in Latin, and with these we 
have nothing to do, but his was the first effort to 
make English prose a literary language; for his last 
work was a Tra7islation of the Gospel of St. John., as 
almost his last words were in English verse. In the 
story of his death told by his disciple Cuthbert is 
the first record of English prose writing. When the last 
day came, the dying man called his scholars to him 
that he might dictate more of his translation. "There 
is still a chapter wanting," said the scribe, "and it is 
hard for thee to questioa thyself longer." " It is easily 



I.] EARLY WRITERS TO THE CONQUEST. 19 

done," said Tceda, " take thy pen and write quickly." 
Through tlie day they wrote, and when evening fell, 
*' There is yet one sentence unwritten, dear master," 
said the youth. " Write it quickly," said the master. 
" It is finished now." " Thou sayest truth," was the 
reply, "all is finished now." He sang the "Glory to 
God " and died. It is to that scene that English prose 
looks back as its sacred source, as it is in the great- 
ness and variety of Bceda's Latin work that English 
literature strikes its key-note. 

14. i^lfred's Work.— When Pccda died, North- 
umbria was the home of prose literature. Though as 
yet written mostly in Latin, it was a wide-spread 
literature. Wilfrid of York and Benedict Biscop had 
founded libraries, and established far and wide a 
number of monastic schools. Six hundred scholars 
gathered round Baeda ere he died, and Alcuin, a pupil 
of Egbert, Archbishop of York, carried in 782 to the 
court of Charles the Great the learning and piety of 
England. But the northern literature began to decay 
towards the end of the eighth century, and after 866 
it was, we may say, blot'ed out by the Danes. The 
long battle with these invaders was lost in Northum- 
hria, but it was gained for a time by /Elfred the Great 
in Wessex ; and with Alfred's literary work, learn- 
ing changed its seat from the north to the south. 
Alfred's writings and translations, being in English 
and not in Latin, make him, since Ba^da's work is 
lost, the true father of English prose. As Whitby 
is the cradle of English poetry, so is Winchester of 
English prose. At Winchester the King took the 
English tongue and made it the tongue in which 
history, philosophy, law and religion spoke to the Eng- 
lish people. No work was ever done more eagerly or 
more practically. He brought scholars from different 
parts of the world. He set up schools in his monas- 
teries ** where every free-born youth, who has the 
means, shall attend to his book till he can read 



20 ENGLISH LITERATURE. l<z^k.v. 

English writing perfectly." He presided over a school 
in his own court. He made himself a master of a 
literary English style, and he did this that he might 
teach his people. He translated the popular manuals 
of the time into English, but he edited them with 
large additions of his own, needful as he thought, for 
English use. He gave his nation moral philosophy in 
Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy ; a universal 
history, with geographical chapters of his own,^ in the 
History of Orosius ; a history of England in Bcedas 
History^ giving to some derails a West-Saxon form ; 
and a religious handbook in the Pastoral Rule of 
Pope Gregory. We do not quite know whether he 
worked himself at the English or Anglo-Saxoji Chi'o- 
nicle, but at least it was in his reign that this chronicle 
rose out of meagre lists into a full narrative of events. 
To him, then, we English look back as the father of 
English prose literature. 

15. The Later Old English Prose.— The 
impulse he gave soon fell away, but it was revived 
under King Eadgar the Peaceful, whose seventeen 
years of government (958-75) were the most pros- 
perous and glorious of the West-Saxon Empire. 
Under him yEthelwald, Bishop of Winchester, made 
it his work to keep up English schools and to 
translate Latin works into English, and Archbishop 
Dunstan carried out the same pursuits with his own 
vigorous intelligence. ./Ethelwald's school sent out 
from it a scholar and abbot named ^lfric. He 
is the hrst large translator of the Bible, turning into 
English the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, and part of 
Job. The rest of his numerous works are some of 
the best m.odels we possess of the simple literary 
English of the beginning of the eleventh century. The 

■^ The Voyao^t's of Ohihere and Wtilfstan, original insertions of 
Alfred into Orosius' History, wiil be found in Mr. '^w&t'Ci, Anglo- 
Saxon Reader. They are "of the highest literary and philolo_^ical 
value as specimens of the natural prose of .-Llfred." 



I.] EARLY WRITERS lO THE CONQUEST. 21 

Homilies we owe to him, and his Lives of the Saints are 
written in a chissic prose, and his Colloquy, afterwards 
edited by another .4^^1fric, may be called the first Knglish- 
Lc'ttin dictionary. But this revival had no sooner begun 
to take root than the Northmen came again in force 
upon the land and conquered it. We have in Wulfstan's 
(Archbishop of York, \002-21) Address to the English, 
a terrible picture, written in impassioned prose, of the 
demoralisation caused by the mroads of the Danes. 
During the long interweaving of Danes and English 
together under Danish kings from 1013 to 1042, no 
P^nglish literature arose. It was towards the quiet 
reign of Edward the Confessor it again began to live. 
But no sooner was it born than the Norman invasion 
repressed, but did not (juench its life. 

16. The English Chronicle. — One great monu- 
ment, however, of old English prose lasts beyond the 
Conquest. It is the English Chronicle, and in it our 
literature is continuous from Alfred to Stephen. At 
first it was nothing but a record of the births and 
deaths of bishops and kings, and was probably a 
West- Saxon Chronicle. Among these short notices 
there is, however, one tragic story, of Cynewulf and 
Cyneheard, 755, so rude in style, and so circum- 
stantial, that it is probably contemporary with the 
events themselves. If so, it is the oldest piece of 
historical prose in any Teutonic tongue. More than 
a hundred years later ^>lfred took up the Chronicle, 
edited it from various sources, added largely to it from 
Baeda, and raised it to the dignity of a national history. 
The narrative of ^^^Ifred's wars with the Danes, written, 
it is likely, by himself at the end of his reign, enables 
us to estimate the great weight yEifred himself had 
in literature. " Compared with this passage," says 
Mr. P^arle, '^ every other piece of i)rose, not in these 
Chronicles merely, but throughout the whole range ot 
extant Saxon literature, must assume a secondary rank.' 
After ^^Ifred's reign, and that of his son Eadward, 



22 ENGLISH LITERA TUKE. [chap. 

901-925, the Chronicle becomes scanty, but songs and 
odes are inserted in it. In the reign of ^thelred and 
during the Danish kings its fulness returns, and grow- 
ing by additions from various quarters, it continues to 
be our great contemporary authority in English history 
till 1 154, when it abruptly closes with the death of 
Stephen. '' It is the first history of any Teutonic 
people in their own language ; it is the earliest and the 
most venerable monument of English prose." In it 
Old English poetry sang its last song, in its death Old 
English prose dies. It is not till the reign of John 
that English poetry m any form but that of short 
poems appears again in the Brut of Layamon. It is 
not till the reign of Edward III. that original English 
prose again begins. 



CHAPTER II. 

FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER's DEATH, 

1066-1400. 

Layamon's Brut, 1205- — Ormin's Ormuliim, 1215- — Sir 
]ohn Mandeville's Travels, 1356- — William Langland's 
Vision concerning Piers the Plowman, 3 texts, 1362, 77, 93. 
John Wyclif's Translation of the Bible, 1380.— John 
Gower's Confessio Amantis, 1393 — 4:- 

Geoffrey Chaucer, born 1340, died 1400. — Dethe of Blaiinche 
the Duchesse, 1369- — Troy Ins and Creseide. — Par lament 
of Fonles. — Compleynt of Mars. — Anelida and Arcite. — 
Hoiis of Fame, 1374 — 1384- — Legetide of Good Women. 
1385-— ''^''^•'■^ Treatise on Astrolabe, 1391- — Canterbury 
Tales, 1373 to 1400- 

17. General Outline. — The invasion of Britain 
by the English made the island, its speech, and its 
literature, English. The invasion of England by the 
Danes left our speech and literature still English. 
The Danes were of our stock and tongue, and we 
absorbed them. The invasion of England by the 



II.] FROM THE COXQUEST TO CHAUCER. 25 

Normans seemed likely to crush the English people, 
to root out their literature, and even to threaten their 
speech. P^ut that which happened to the Danes hap- 
))ened to the Normans also, and for the same reason, n 
They were originally of like blood to the English, 
and of like speech ; and though during their settle- 
ment in Normandy they had become French in 
manner and language, and their literature French, 
yet the old blood prevailed in the end. The Nor- 
man felt his kindred with the English tongue and 
spirit, became an Englishman, and left the French 
tongue to speak and write in English. We absorbed 
the Normans, and we took into our literature and 
speech some French elements they had brought with 
them. It was a process slower in literature than it 
was in the political history, but it began from the 
political struggle. Up to the time of Henry II. the 
Norman troubled himself but little about the English 
tongue. But when French foreigners came pouring 
into the land in the train of Henry and his sons, the 
Norman allied himself with the Englishman against 
these foreigners, and the English tongue began to 
rise into importance. Its literature grew slowly, but 
as quickly as most of the literatures of Europe, and 
it never ceased to grow. We are carried on to the 
year 11 54 by the prose of the English Chronicle. 
There are old English homilies which we may date 
from 1 1 20. The so-called Moral Ode, an English 
riming poem, was compiled about the year 1160, 
and is found in a volume of homilies of the same 
date. In the reign of Henry H., the old Southern- 
English Gospels of King ^thelred's time were modern- 
ised after 200 years or less of use. The Sayings of 
Alfred, written in English for the English, were com- 
posed about the year 1200. About the same date the 
old English Charters of Bury St. Edmunds were trans- 
lated into the dialect of the shire, and now, early in 
the thirteenth century, at the central time of the strife 
3 



24 ENGLISH LITER A TUKE, [chap. 

between English and foreign elements, after the death 
of Richard I., the Brut of Layamon and the Ormuliwi 
come forth within ten years of each other to prove 
the continuity, the survival, and the victory of the 
English tongue. When the patriotic struggle closed 
in the reign of Edward L, English literature had 
again risen,' through the song, the sermon, and 
the poem, into importance, and was wTitten by a 
people made up of Norman and Englishman welded 
into one by the fight against the foreigner. But 
though the foreigner was driven out, his literature in- 
fluenced, and continued to influence, the new Eng- 
lish poetry. The poetry, we say, for in this revival 
our literature was chiefly poetical. Prose, with but 
■few exceptions, was written in Eatin. 

i8. Religious and Story-telling Poetry are 
the two main streams into which this poetical litera- 
ture divides itself. The religious poetry is entirely 
English in spirit, and a poetry of the people, from the 
Ormidum of Ormin, 12 15, to the Vision of Piers the 
PlowmaJt, in which poem the distinctly English poetry 
reached its truest expression in 1362. The story-telling 
poetry is English at its beginning, but becomes more 
and more influenced by tlie romantic poetry of France, 
and in the end grows in Chaucer's hands into a poetry 
of the court and of high society, a literary in contrast 
with a popular poetry. But even in this the spirit of 
the poetry is English, though the manner is French. 
Chaucer becomes less French and even less Italian 
in manner, till at last we And him entirely English in 
feeling — though he borrows some of his subjects 
from foreign stories — in the Canterbury Taies^ the 
best example of English story -telling we possess. 
The struggle then of England against the foreigner 
to become and remain England finds its parallel 
in the struggle of English poetry against the influ- 
ence of foreign poetry to become and remain Eng- 
lish. Both struggles were long and wearisome, but 



II. FkvM THK CO. \ QUEST TO CHAUCER. 25 

in both England was triiimpliant. She became a 
nation, and she won a national literature. It is the 
course of this struggle we have now to trace along 
the two lines already laid down — the poetry of re- 
I't^ion and the poetry of story-telling ; but to do 
so we must begin in both instances witli the Norman 
Conquest. 

19. The Religious Poetry. — The religious re- 
vival of the eleventh century was strongly felt in 
Normandy, and both the knights and Churchmen who 
came to England with William the Conqueror and 
during his son's reign, were founders of abbeys, 
from which, as centres of learning and charity, 
the country was civilised. In Henry I.'s reign the 
religion of England was further quickened by mis- 
sionary monks sent by Bernard of Clairvaux. London 
was stirred to rebuild St. Paul's, and abbeys rose 
in all the well-watered valleys of the North. The 
English citizens of London and the English peasants 
in the country received a new religious life from the 
foreign noble and the foreign monk, and both were 
drawn together through a common worship. When 
this took place a desire arose for religious handbooks 
in the English tongue. Ormin's Onnulum is a type of 
these. We may dale it, though not precisely, at 1215, 
the date of the Great Charter. It is entirely English, 
not five French words are to be found in it. It is a 
metrical version of the service of each day with the 
addition of a sermon in verse. The book was called 
Ormulum, "for this, that Orm it wrought." It 
marks the rise of Ejiglish religious literature, and 
its religion is simple and rustic. Orm's ideal monk 
is to be " a very pure man, and altogether without 
property, except that he shall be found in simple 
meat and clothes." He will have "a hard and stiff 
and rough and heavy life to lead. All his heart 
and desire ought to be aye toward heaven, and 
his Master well to serve." This was English religion 



26 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

in the country at this date. It was continued in 
English writing by the Ancren Riwle — the Rule of 
the Anchoresses — written about 1220, in the Dorset- 
shire dialect. The Genesis and Exodus, a biblical poem 
of about 1250, was made by the pious writer to make 
Christian men as glad as birds at the dawning for 
the story of salvation. A Northumbrian Psalter of 
1250 is only one example out of many devotional 
pieces, homilies, metrical creeds, hymns to the Virgin, 
which, with the metrical Lives of the Saints (a large 
volume, the lives translated from Latin or French 
prose into English verse), carry the religious poetry up 
to 1300. 

20. Literature and the Friars. — There was 
little religion in the towns, but this was soon changed. 
In 1 22 1 the Mendicant Friars came to England, and 
they chose the towns for their work. The first Friars 
who learnt English that they might preach to the 
people were foreigners, and spoke French. Many 
English Friars studied in Paris, and came back to 
England, able to talk to Norman noble and English 
peasant. Their influence, exercised both on Norman 
and English, was thus a mediatory and uniting one, 
and Normans as well as English now began to write 
religious works in English. In 1303 Robert Manning of 
Brunne translated a French poem, the Manual of Sins 
(written thirty years earlier by William of Waddington), 
under the title of Ba?id/yng Synne. William of 
Shoreham translated the whole of the Psalter into 
English prose about 1327, and wrote religious poems. 
The Cicrsor Miindi, written about 1320, and thought 
" the best book of all " by men of that time, was a 
metrical version of the Old and New Testament, inter- 
spersed, as was the Handlyng Synne, with legends of 
saints. Some scattered Sermons, and in 1340 the 
Ayenbiie 0/ I^iwyt {Remorse of Conscience), translated 
from the French, mark how English prose was rising 
through religion. About the same year Richard RoUe 



II.] FROM THE CONQUEST TO CIJAUCER. 27 

of Hampole wrote in Latin and in Nortliumbrian 
I'^nglish for the *' unlearned," a poem called the Fricke 
of Conscience, and some prose treatises. Tiiis poem is 
the last religious poem of any importance before the 
Vision of Piers the riowman. At its date, 1340, the 
religious intiuence of the Friars was swiftly decaying. 
They had been attacked twenty years before it, in a 
poem of 1320, and twenty years after it, in 1360, their 
mfluence was wholly gone. Jn Piers Plowman (1362) 
the protest Langland makes for purity of life is also a 
])rotest against the foul life and the hypocrisy of the 
Friars. In that poem, as we shall see, the whole of the 
popular English religion of the time of Chaucer is re- 
l)resented. In it also the natural, unliterary, country 
English is best represented. It brings us up in the 
death of its author to the year 1400, the same year 
in whicli Chaucer died. 

21. History and the Story-telling Poetiy. — 
The Normans brought an historical taste with them 
to England, and created a valuable historical litera- 
ture. It was written in Latin, and we have nothing 
to do with it till story-telling grew out of it in the 
time of the Great Charter. But it was in itself of such 
importance that a few things must be said about it. 

(i) The men who wrote it were called Chron- 
iclers. At first they were mere annalists — that is, they 
jotted down the events of year after year without 
any attempt to bind them together into a connected 
whole. But afterwards, from the time of Henry I., 
another class of men arose, who wrote, not in scat- 
tered monasteries, but in the Court. Living at the 
centre of political life, their histories were written in a 
philosophic spirit, and wove into a whole the growth 
of law and national life and the story of aftairs abroad. 
Thev are our great authorities for the history of these 
times. They begin with lVi/Iia?n of Alalmesbury, 
whose book ends in 1142, and die out after Matthew 
Paris, ^235 — 73. llibtorica! I'terature, written iu 



2S ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

prose in England, is only represented after the death 
of Henry III. by a few dry Latin annalists till it rose 
again in modern English prose in 15 13, when Sir 
Thomas More's Life of Edward V. and Usiirpatio7i of 
Richard III. is said to have been written. 

(2) A distinct English Feeling soon sprang up 
among these Norman historians. English patriotism 
was far from having died among the English them- 
selves. The Sayings of ^-Elfred were written in 
English by the English. These and some ballads, 
as well as the early Englisli war-songs, interested the 
Norman historians and were collected by them. Wil- 
liam of Malmesbury, who was born of EngUsh and 
Norman parents, has sympathies with both peoples, 
and his history marks how both were becoming one 
nation. The same welding together of the conquered 
and the conquerors is seen in the others till we come 
to Matthew Paris, whose view of history is entirely 
that of an Englishman. When he wrote, Norman 
noble and English yeoman, Norman abbot and Eng- 
lish priest, were, and are in his pages, one in blood 
and one in interests. 

22. English Story-telling grew out of this his- 
lorical literature. There was a Welsh priest at the 
court of Henry L, called Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
who, inspired by the Genius of romance, composed 
twelve short books, which he playfully called History. 
He had been given, he said, an ancient Welsh book 
10 translate which told in verse the history of Britain 
trom the days when Brut, the great-grandson of 
^Eneas, landed on its shores, through the whole his- 
tory of King Arthur and his Round Table down to 
Cadwallo, a Welsh king who died in 689. The Latin 
"translation " he made of this apocryphal book he com- 
pleted in 1 147. The real historians were angry at 
the fiction, and declared that throughout the whole of 
it ** he had lied saucily and shamelessly." It was 
indeed only a clever putting together and invention 



11.] FROM THE CONQUEST 70 CHAUCER. 29 

of a number of Welsh legends, but it was the beginning 
of stoty-telling in our land. Every one who reatl it 
was delighted with it ; it made, as we should say, a 
sensation, and as much on the Continent as in Eng- 
land. In it the Welsh, as 1 have said, invaded 
English literature, and their tales have never since 
ceased to live in it. They charm us as much in 
Tennyson's Idylls of the King as they charmed us in 
the days of Henry I. But the stories Geoffrey of 
Monmouth told were in Latin prose. They were put 
first into French verse by Geoffrey Gaimar for the wife 
of his patron, Ralph FitzGilbert, a northern baron. 
They got afterwards to France and, added to from 
Breton legends, were made into a poem and decked 
out with the ornaments of French romance. In that 
form they came back to England as the work of Wace, 
a Norman trouveur, the writer also of the Romati de 
Ron, who called his poem the Brut, and completed 
it in 1 155, shortly after tlie accession of Henry II. 

23. Layamon's " Brut." — In this French form 
the story drifted through England, and at last falling 
into the hands of an English priest in Worcestershire, 
he resolved to tell it in English verse to his country- 
men, and doing so became the writer of our first 
English poem after the Conquest. We may roughly 
say that its date is 1205, ten years or so before the 
Onnulum was written, ten years before the Great 
Charter. It is [)lain that its composition, though it 
told a Welsh story, was looked on as a patriotic work 
by the writer. " There was a^ priest in the land," he 
writes of himself, " whose name was Layamon ; he 
was son of Leovenath : May the Lord be gracious 
unto him ! He dwelt at Earnley, a noble church on 
the bank of Severn, near Radstone, where he read 
books. It came in mind to him and in his chiefest 
thought that he would tell the noble deeds of England, 
what the men were named, and whence they came, 
who first had English land." And it was truly of great 



30 ENGLISH LITERA TURE. [chap. 

importance. The poem opened to the imagination of 
the English people an immense, though a fabled, past 
for the history of the island they dwelt in, and made 
a common bond of iniercst between Norman and 
Englishman. Though chielly rendered from the 
French, there are not fifty French words in its 30,000 
lines. The old English alliterative metre is kept uj) 
with a few rare rimes. As we read the short quick 
lines in which the battles are described, as we listen 
to the simple metaphors, and feel the strong, rude 
character of the poem, we are put in mind of Csedmon ; 
and what Csedmon was to early English poetry, 
Layamon is to English poetry after the Conquest. He 
IS the first of the nevv smgers. 

24. Story-telling grows French in form. — 
After an interval the desire for story-telling increased 
in England. The Rorna7ice of Sir Tristra7n was, it is 
supposed, versified in 1270, and many other tales of 
Arthur's Knights, and some stories which had an 
English origin, such as the lays oi Havelok the Dane 
and of King Horn (both about 1280), were translated 
from the French, while Edward I. was makmg Norman 
and English into one people. The Romance of King 
Alexander, originally a Greek work, was, at the same 
date, adapted from the French into English, and about 
1300 Robert of Gloucester wrote his Riming Chronicle, 
a history of England from Brutus to the reign of 
Edward I.^ As the dates grow nearer to 1300, seven 
years before the death of Edward I., the amount of 
French words increases, and the French romantic 
manner of telling stories is more and more marked. 

^ I may mention in thi^ place that between 1327 and 135S, 
Robert of Brunne whose Handlyng Sinne is spoken of at p. 26, 
made another English Chronicle, translating the first part from 
Wace's Brut, p. 29, and the second part from Peter Langtoft's 
French Metrical Chronicle. It is a fresh instance of the eager- 
ness with which French work was now got into English, for 
Langtoft, a Canon of Bridlington, had only wri'.ten his Chronicle 
a few years before. 



11] FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. 31 

In the Lay of Havclok the s])irit and descriptions of 
the poem still resemhb old English work; in the 
Romance of Alexander, on the other hand, the natural 
landscape, the conventional introductions to the parts, 
the gorgeous descriptions of pomps, and armour, and 
cities, the magic wonders, the manners, and feasts, and 
battles of chivalry, the love passages, are all steeped 
in the colours of French romantic poetry. Now this 
romance was adapted by a Frenchman about the year 
1200. It took therefore nearly a century before the 
French romantic manner of poetry could be natural- 
ised in English ; and it was naturalised, curious to 
say, at the very time when England as a nation had 
lost its French elements and become entirely English. 

25. Cycles of Komance — At this time, then, the 
French romance of a hundred years earlier was popu- 
larised in England. There were four great romantic 
stories. The first was that of KIji^:; Arthur and the 
Round Table, and Geoffrey of Monmouth introduced 
it into England, p. 28. Walter Map, a councillor 
and friend of Henry II., and afterv/ards Archdeacon 
of York, took up Geoffrey's work, and threw into form, 
in Latin, all the Arthur legends. He invented and 
added to them the story of the Quest of the Graal 
(the Holy Dish that contained the sacramental blood 
of Christ and the Paschal Lamb), and made it their 
centre. By this invention he bound all the Arthur 
legends up with the highest doctrine of the Church. 
Afterwards he added the Morte d^ Arthur. The im- 
pulse thus given wis continued at home and abroad 
in the invention of new Arthurian stories, and by 
1300 they were all popular in England and sung and 
made into English verse. 

The second romantic story was thnt of Charlemagne 
and his tivelve peers. Forged about 11 10 in the 
name of Archbishop Turpin, it excited interest in the 
Crusades by inventing a visit of Charlemagne's to the 
Holy Sepulchre and various stories and battles of his 

3* 



32 EXGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

peers with the Saracens in Spain. Of the number of 
romances which grew out of this subject, we EngUsh 
have only six poems or fragments of poems, one of 
Rolafid, one of Otuivell^ one of Charletnagne and 
Roland^ a Siege of Milan, Sir Ji'erumbras in three or 
four different versions, and the humorous Rouf Coill- 
yean. Their dates extend over the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries. 

The third romantic story arose after the Crusades, 
and is that of the Life of Alexande?\ already alluded 
to as coming from the East. Its romantic wonders, 
fictions, and magic, partly derived from the Arabian 
books about Eskander (Alexander), were doubled by 
the imagination and coloured with all the romance of 
chivalry ; and the story became so common in Eng- 
land that "every wight that hath discrecioune," says 
Chaucer, had heard of Alexander's fortune. 

The fourth romantic story was that of the Siege of 
Troy. Two Latin pieces, bearing the names oi Dares 
F/irygius and of JDictys Crete nsis, composed in the 
decline of Latin literature, were taken up by Guido di 
Colonna of Messina about 1260, and with fabulous and 
romantic inventions of his own, and with additions 
woven into them from the Theban and Argonautic 
stories (so that Jason and Hercules and Theseus were 
incorporated into romance), were made into a great 
Latin story in fifteen books. It does not seem to have 
much entered into English literature till Chaucer's 
time, but Chaucer and Lydgate both used it. 

These were the four great Romantic cycles, which 
we popularised from the French. But the desire 
for romances was not satisfied with these. About 
the reign of Edward L a romance of Richard 
Coeiir de Lion, and about 1360 the Roma?ice of 
Willia77i a7id the We?'7uolf were both translated from 
the French. Chaucer mentions Sir Bevis of South- 
ampton, Sir Guy of Warwirk, the Squire of Low 
Dcgi'ee, Ypotis a theological story, Sidrac, and others. 



II.] I' ROM rilE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. 33 

'I 'here were also Syr Degorc (L'Egare), King Robert of 
Sidly, the King of Tars, Jponiydon, Octavian the Em- 
perour, &c., all taken from the French, and made 
English in the times of the Edwards. The country 
was therefore swarming with French tales, and its 
poetic imagination with the fancies and the fables of 
French chivalry. Finally, the influence of this French 
school in England is seen in the stories of Gower, and 
in the earlier poems of Chaucer. It lasted on, after 
Chaucer's death, in such poems as the Court of 
Lo7'e, written about 1470, and wrongly attributed to 
Chaucer. It came to its height in the translation of 
the Rojtiaunt of the Rose, the crowning effort also of 
French romance, but of a new type of romance, that 
of the Allegory of Love. After the earlier poems of 
Chaucer the story-telling of England sought its sub- 
jects in another country than France. It turned to 
Italy. 

26. English Lyrics. — In the midst of all this 
story-telling, like ])rophecies of what should after- 
wards be so lovely in our poetry, rose, no one can 
tell how, some lyric poems, country idylls, love songs, 
and, later on, some war songs. The English ballad, 
sung from town to town by wandering gleemen, had 
never altogether died. A number of rude ballads 
collected round the legendary Robin Hood, and the 
kind of poetic literature which sung of the outlaw 
and the forest, and afterwards so fully of the wild 
border life, gradually took form. About 12S0 a beau- 
tiful little idyll called the Oiol and the Nightingale 
was written, probably in Dorsetshire, in which the 
rival birds submit tb.eir quarrel for precedence to the 
possible writer of the poem, Nicholas of Guildford. 
About 1300 we meet with a ^tw lyric poems, full of 
charm. They sing of spring-time with its blossoms, of 
the woods ringing with the thrush and nightingale, 
of the flowers and the seemly sun, of country work, of 
the woes and joys of love, and many other delightful 



34 ENGLISH LITERA TURE. [chap. 

things. They are tinged with the colour of French 
romance, but they have an EngHsh background. We 
read nothing hke them, except in Scotland, till we 
come to the Elizabethan time. About the same date 
we find the satirical poem of the Lajid of Cockaygne, 
{coquina, a kitchen), where the monks live in an 
abbey built of pasties, and the rivers run with wine, 
and the geese fly through the air ready roasted, and 
a fair nunnery is close by, upon a river of sweet milk. 
The old ^;z«9W/<r poetry returns in the Proverbs of Hen- 
dy7ig, 1272, 1307. Political ballads now began, in 
Edward I.'s reign, to be frequently written in English, 
but the only ballads of importance are that on the 
battle of Lewes, 1264, and the ten war-lyrics of 
Lawrence Minot, who, in 1352, sang the great deeds 
and batdes of Edward IIL 

27. The King's English. — We have thus traced 
the rise of our English literature to the time of Chaucer. 
We must now complete the sketch by a word or two 
on the language in which it was written. The literary 
English language seemed at first to be destroyed by the 
Conquest. It lingered till Stephen's death in the 
English Chronicle ; a few traces of it are still found 
about Henry's III. 's death m t\\& Bnit oi Layamon. 
But, practically s-jeaki ng, from the twelfth century till 
the middle of the fourteenth there was no standard of 
English. The language, spoken only by the people, 
fell back into that broken state of anarchy in which 
each part of the country has its own dialect, and each 
writer uses the dialect of his own dwelling-place. All 
the poems then of which we have spoken were written 
in dialects of English, not in a fixed English common 
to all writers. French or Latin was the language of 
literature and of the literary class. But towards 
the middle of Edward III.'s reign English got the 
better of French. After the Black Death in 1349 
French was less used ; in 1362 English was made the 
language of the courts of law. In the meantime. 



II.] FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. 35 

• 
during the prevalence of French, EngUsh prose and 
poetry had been invaded by French words. The 
Ancren Rnc/e, fifteen years after tlie Brut of Laya- 
nion, is full of them, and after Henry III.'s death a 
host of them rushed in, and the old English words 
died out in proportion. One-seventh of the old Eng- 
lish verbs, adverbs, and nouns used in 1200 are gone 
in 1300. Against 250 Romance words used in 1200, 
we have 800 used in 1300. A great deal of this work 
was done by the Friars. The medicine, the science 
of the time, were in their hands, and from 1220 they 
mixed themselves up, both by preaching and in society, 
with the crafts of the merchantmen and, interlarding 
all their speech with French words, made these words 
common among the crafts and the middle classes, 
till they stole in even into the Creed and the Ford's 
Prayer. Architecture, of course, became French in 
terms ; the Norman ladies introduced French terms of 
dress, and of all the arts and trades that ministered to 
their luxury. The knight brought in French terms for 
all the matters that had to do with war and hunting 
and cookery ; the lawyer, French terms that belonged 
to law and government ; while the Friars, talking to 
the people of the vices, luxury, customs and lives of 
the upper class, made all these new French words 
common to the ears of the English-speaking classes. 
A great change was thus wrought in the Knglish 
language. At the same time most of thj older in- 
flections had disappeared, except in the South, and 
French endings and French prefixes beuar. to be also 
used, till at last Oliphant can say tb.at almost "every 
one of the Teutonic changes of idiom. «'istinguishing 
the old English from the new, the sj eech of Queen 
Victoria from that of Hengest, are to be found, in 1303, 
in Robert of Brunne's work, and a third of l.is nouns, 
verbs, and adverbs are French." In him then the 
new English arose into clear form. But it was not as 
yet a standard English : it was still in Robert's work 
4 



36 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

a dialect, the East-Midland dialect. Of the three 
dialects the Northern and Southern alone existed 
before the Conquest; but the literary English, which 
we may call Anglo-Saxon, was distinct from both, and 
we have said that it all but perished after the Con- 
(luest. Another dialect then grew up in the Midland 
shires— in East Anglia, and to the west of the Pennine 
chain. It was the Midland dialect, and spoken over 
the largest tract, was divided into West and East Mid- 
land. 'J'he East Midland became the language of litera- 
ture, the standard English. Becoming, " in cloisters on 
the Nen and the Welland," the fullest receiver of the 
French words, and the largest accepter of the changes, 
and especially in Robert of Brunne's work, it took hold 
of Cambridge, and then of Oxford, and spoken and 
written in these two centres of learning, crept down, 
conquering, to the South, and finally seized on London. ^ 
It did not overthrow the dialects, for the Vision of 
Piers the Plowman and Wiclif's translation of the 
Bible are both in a dialect, but it became the standard 
English, the language in which all future English 
literature was to be written. It was fixed into clear 
form by Chaucer and Gower. It was the language 
talked at the court and in the court society to which 
these poets belonged. It was the King's English, and 
the fact that it was the tongue of the best and most 
cultivated society, as well as the great excellence of the 
works written in it by these poets, made it at once 
the tongue of literature. 

28. Keligious Literature in Langland and 
Wiclif — We have traced the work of ''transition 
English," as it has been called, along the lines of 
■popular religion and story-telling. The first of these, 
in the realm of poetry, reaches its goal in the work of 
William Langland ; in the realm of prose it reaches its 
goal in Wiclif. In both these writers, the work 

^ See f jr all this Oliphant's Standard English, an admirable 
book. 



II.] FROM TIJJi COXQUESr 7 CHAUCER. 37 

differs from any that went before it, by its extraordinary 
power, and by the depth of iis religious leciing. It is 
plain tliat it rei)resented a society much more strongly 
moved by religion than that of the beginning of the 
fourteenth century. In Wiclif, the voice comes from 
the university, and it went all over the land in the 
body of preachers whom, like Wesley, he sent forth. 
In Langland's Vision we have a voice from the centre 
of the j)eople themselves ; his poem is written in a 
style made uncouth by the necessities of its alliterative 
English verse, and in the old English manner. The 
very ploughboy could understand it. It became the 
book of those who desired social and Church reform. 
It was as eagerly read by the free labourers anil 
fugitive serfs who collected round John Ball and Wat 
Tyler. 

29. Causes of the Religious Revival. — It was 
originally due to the prjaching of the I'riars m the 
thirteenth century, and to the noble example they set 
of devotion to tne poor. When the Friars however 
became nch, though pretending to be poor, and 
impure of life, though pretending to goodness, the 
religious feeling they had stirred turned against them- 
selves, and Its two strongest cries, both on the 
Continent and in England, were for Truth, and for 
Purity, in private life, in State and Church. 

Another cause common to the Continent and to 
England in this century was the movement for the 
equal rights of man against the class system of the 
middle ages. It was made a religious movement 
when men said that they were equal before God, 
and that goodness in His eyes was the only 
nobility. And it brought with it a religious protest 
against the oppression of the people by the class of 
the nobles. 

There were two other causes, however, special to 
England at this time. One was the utter misery of 
the people, owing to the French wars. Heavy taxation 



3S ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

'ell upon them, and they were ground down by severe 
laws, which prevented them bettering themselves. 
They felt this all the more because so many of them 
had bought their freedom, and began to feel the 
delight of freedom. It was then that in their misery 
ihey turned to religion, not only as their sole refuge, 
but as supplying them with reasons for a social revolu- 
tion. The other cause was the Black Death, the 
Great Plague which, in 1349, "62, and '69, swept 
over England. Grass grew in the towns; whole 
villages were left uninhabited ; a wild panic fell upon 
the people, which was added to by a terrible tempest 
in 1362 that to men's minds told of the wrath of 
God. In their terror then, as well as in their pain, they 
fled to religion. 

30. Piers the Plowman. — All these elements are 
to be found fully represented in the Vision of Piers 
the Plowman. Its author, William Langland, though 
we are not certain of his surname, was born, about 
1332, at Cleobury Mortimer, in Shropshire. His 
Vision begins with a description of his sleeping 
on the Malvern Hills, and the first text of it was 
probably written in the country in 1362. At the 
accession of Richard 11. , 1377, he was in London. 
The great popularity of his poem made him in that 
year, and again in the year 1393, send forth two more 
texts of his poem. In these texts he added to the 
original Vision the poems of Do Wei, Do Bet, and 
Do Pest. In 1399, he wrote at Bristol his last poem, 
the Deposition of Richard II., and then died, probably 
in 1400. 

He paints his portrait as he was when he lived in 
Cornhill, a tall, gaunt figure, whom men called Long 
Will ; clothed in the black robes in which he sang for 
a few pjnce at the funerals of the rich ; hating to take 
his cap off his shaven head to bow to the lords and 
ladies that rode by in silver and furs as he stalked in 
observant moodiness along the Strand. It is this 



1 1. J FROM THE COXQUEST TO CHAUCER. 39 

figure, wliich in indignant sorrow walks through the 
whole ])oem. 

31. His Vision.— The dream of the "field full of 
folk," with which it begins, biings together nearly as 
manv ty|)ical characters as the Tales of Chaucer do. 
In the first ]xirt, the Truth sought for is rii;htcous deal- 
ing in Church, and Law, and State. After the Prologue 
of the " field full of folk " and in it the Tower of Truth, 
and the Dungeon where the Father of Falsehood 
lives, the Vision treats of Holy Church who tells the 
dreamer of Truth. Where is Falsehood ? he asks. She 
bids him turn, and he sees Falsehood, and Lady Meed 
(or Bribery), and learns that they are to be married. 
Theology interferes, and all the parties go to London 
before the King. Lady JNIeed arraigned on False- 
hood's flight, is advised by tlie King to marry Con- 
science, but Conscience indignantly ])roclaims her 
faults, and prophesies that one day Reason will judge 
the world. On this the King sends for Reason, who, 
deciding a (question against Wrong and in spite of 
Bribery, is begged by the King to remain with him. 
This fills four divisions or " Passus." The fifth Passus 
contains the Vision of the Strocn Deadly Si/is, and is 
full of vivid pictures of friars, robbers, nuns, of village 
life, of London alehouses, of all the vices of the 
time. It ends with the search for Truth being taken 
up by all the penitents, and then for the first time Pier? 
the Plowman appears and describes the way. He sets 
all who come to him to hard work, and it is here that 
the passages occur in which the labouring poor and 
their evils are dwelt upon. The seventh Passus intro- 
duces the bull of pardon sent by Truth (God the Father) 
to Piers. A Priest declares it is not valid, and the 
discussion between him and Piers is so hot that the 
Dreamer awakes and ends with a fine outburst on the 
wretchedness of a trust in indulgences and the noble- 
ness of a righteous life. This is the original poem. 

In the second part the truth sought for is that of 



40 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

righteous life, to Do Well, to Do Better, to Do Best, 
the three titles of the poems added afterwards. In a 
series of dreams and a highly-wrought allegory, Do 
Well, Do Bet, and Do Best, are finally identified with 
Jesus Christ, who now appears as Love in the dress of 
Piers the Plowman. Do Well is full of curious and 
important passages. Do Bet points out Christ as the 
Saviour of the World, describes His death, resurrec- 
tion and victory over Death and Sin. And the 
dreamer wakes in a transport of joy, with the Easter 
chimes pealing in his ears. But as Langland looked 
round on the world, the victory did not seem real, 
and the stern dreamer passed out of triumph into 
the dark sorrow in which he lived. He dreams 
again in Do Best, and sees, as Christ leaves the earth, 
the reign of Antichrist. Evils attack the Church and 
mankind. Envy, Pride, and Sloth, helped by the 
Friars, besiege Conscience. Conscience cries on 
Contrition to help him, but Contrition is asleep, and 
Conscience, all but despairing, grasps his pilgrim staff 
and sets out to wander over the world, praying for 
luck and health, "till he have Piers the Plov\man," 
till he find the Saviour. And then the dreamer 
wakes for the last time, weeping bitterly. 

'^I'his is the poem which wrought so strongly in 
men's minds that its influence was almost as widely 
spread as Wiclif's in the revolt which had now begun 
agamst Latm Christianity. Its fame was so great, that it 
produced imitators. About 1394, ar other alliterative 
poem was set forth by an unknown author, with the 
title of Pierce the Plowma7i' s Crede ; ard the Ploivman's 
Tale, wronglv attributed to Chaucer, is another watness 
to the popularity of Langland. 

32. Wiclif. — At the same time as the Vision was 
being read all over England, John Wiclif, about 1380, 
began his work in the English tongue with a nearly 
complete 7ra7islatio7i of the Bible. It was a book which 
had as much influence in fixing our language as the 



II.] J KOM THE COAQUEST TO CHAUCER. 41 

work of Cliaucer. But he did much more than tliis for 
our tongue. He made it the popular language of re- 
ligious thouglit and feeling. In 1381 he was in full 
battle with the Church on the doctrine of transub- 
Gtantiation, and was condemned to silence. He replied 
by appealing to the whole of England in the speech of 
the people. He sent forth tract after tract, sermon 
after sermon, couched not in the dry, philosophic 
style of the schoolmen, but in short, sharp, stinging 
sentences, full of the homely words used in his own 
Bible, denying one by one almost all the doctrines, 
and denouncing the practices, of the Church of Rome. 
He was our first Protestant. It was a new literary 
vein to open, the vein of the pamphleteer. With his 
work then, and with Langland's, we bring up to the year 
1400 the English prose and poetry pertaining to re- 
ligion, the course of which we have been tracing since 
the Conquest. 

33. Story-telling is the other line on which we 
have placed our literature, and it is represented first 
by John Gower. He belongs to a school older than 
Chaucer, inasmuch as he is scarcely touched by the 
Italian,but chiefly by the French influence. Y'xixy Balades 
prove with what grace he could write when a young 
man in the French tongue about the affairs of love. 
As he grew older he grew graver, and partly as the 
religious and social reformer, and partly as the story- 
teller, he fills up the literary transition between Langland 
and Chaucer. In the church of St. Saviour, at South- 
wark, his head is still seen resting on his three great 
works, tlie Speculum Mcditantis, the Vox C/a?nafitis, 
the Confessio A?uantis, I393- Jt marks the unsettled 
state of our literary language, that each of these was 
written in a different tongue, the first in French, the 
second in Eatin, the third in English. 

The third, his English work, is a dialogue between 
a lover and his confessor a priest of Venus, and in its 
course, and with an imitation of Jean de Meun's 



42 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

part of the Romaji de la Rose, all the passions and 
studies which may hinder love are dwelt upon, partly 
in allegory, and their operation illustrated by apposite 
stories, borrowed from the Gesta Romanoium and 
from the Romances. The tales are wearisome, and 
the smoothness of the verse makes them more weari- 
some. Bat Gower was a careful writer of English ; 
and in his satire of evils, and in his grave reproof of 
the follies of Richard II., he rises into his best strain. 
The king himself, even though reproved, was a patron 
of the poet. It was as Gower was rowing on the 
Thames that the royal barge drew near, and he was 
called to the king's side. "Book some new thing," 
said the king, " in the way you are used, into which 
book I myself may often look ; " and the request was 
the origin of the Confession of a Lover. It is with 
pleasure that we turn from the learned man of talent 
to Geoffrey Chaucer — to the genius who called Gower, 
with perhaps some of the irony of an artist, *' the moral 
Gower." 

34. Chaucer's French Period.— Geoffrey 
Chaucer was the son of a vintner, of Thames Street, 
London, and was born, it is now believed, in 1340. He 
lived almost all his life in London, in the centre of its 
work and society, ^^1len he was sixteen he became 
page to the wife of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and con- 
tinued at the Court till he joined the army in France 
in 1359. He was taken prisoner, but ransomed be- 
fore the treaty of Bretigny, in 1360. We then know 
nothing of his life for six years ; but from items in 
the Exchequer Rolls, we find that he was again 
connected with the Court, from 1366 to 1372. It 
was during this time that he began to write. His first 
poem may have been the ^. B, C. a prayer Englished 
from the French at the request of the Duchess Blanche. 
The translation of the Romau?it of the Rose has been 
attributed to him, but the best critics are doubtful 
of, or deny, his authorship. They are only sure of 



ii.J hROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. 43 

lA'O poems, the Coifipleynte to Pity in 1368, and in the 
next year the Det/ie of Blaunche the Duchesse^ whose 
husbanci, John of (iaunt, was Chaucer's patron. These, 
being written undjr the inHuence of French poetry, 
are classed under the name of Chaucer's first period. 
There are hnes in them wliich se(im to speak of a 
hickless love affair, and in this broken love it has been 
supposed we find the key to Cliaucer's early life. 

35. Chaucer's Italian Period. — Cliaucer's 
second poetic pt;riod may be called the period of 
Italian influence, from 1372 to 1384. During these 
years he went for the king on no less than seven 
diplomatic missions. Three of these, in 1372, '74, 
and '78, were to Italy. At that time the great Italian 
literature which inspired then, and still inspires, 
European literature, had reached full growth, and it 
opened to Chaucer a new world of art. His many 
quotations from Dante show that he had read the 
Divina Commedia, and we may well think that he then 
first learnt the full power and range of poetry. He 
read the Sonnets of Petrarca, and he learnt what 
is meant by " form " in poetry. He read the tales 
and poems of Boccaccio, who made Italian prose, and 
in them he first saw how to tell a story exquisitely. 
Petrarca and Boccaccio he may even have met, for 
they died in 1374 and 1375, but he never saw Dante, 
who died at Ravjnna in 1321. When he came back 
from these journeys he was a new man. He threw 
aside the romantic poetry of France, and Inughed at 
it in his gay and kindly manner in the Rijne of Sir 
Thopas, afterwards made one of the Canterbury Tales. 
His chief work of this time bears witness to the influ- 
ence of Italy. It was Troylus and Creseide, 1382 (?), 
a translation, with many changes and additions, of the 
Filostrato of Boccaccio. The additions (and he 
nearly doubled the poem) are stamped with his own 
peculiar tenderness, ^ividness, and simplicity. His 
changes from the original are all towards the side of 



44 ENGLISH LITERA TURE. [chap. 

purity, good taste, and piety. We meet the further 
influence of Boccaccio in the birth of some of the 
Canterbury Tales, and of Petrarca in the Tales them- 
selves. To this time is now referred the tales of the 
Second Nun, the Monk, the Doctor, the Man of Law, 
the Clerk, the Prioress, the Squire, the Franklin, Sir 
Thopas, and the first draft of the Knight's Tale, 
borrowed, with much freedom, from the Teseide of 
Boccaccio. The other poems of this period were the 
Compleyjit of Ma?'s, Anelida and A rate, Boece, the 
Former Age, and the Fajiament of Ironies, all between 
1374 and 1382, \\\Q Lines to Ada?n Scrivetier, ^2i^-^i ^"'i 
the HoiLS of Fa?ne, 1384 {?). In the passion with 
which Chaucer describes the ruined love of Troilus 
and Anelida, some have traced the Hngering sorrow 
of his early love affair. But if this be true, it was 
now passing away, for in the creation of Pandarus in 
the Troilus, and in the delightful fun of the Fai'lament 
of Foides, a new Chaucer appears, the humorous poet of 
some of the Canterbury 7 ales. In the active business 
life he led during this period he was likely to grow 
out of mere sentiment, for he was not only employed 
on service abroad, but also at home. In 1374 he 
was Comptroller of the Wool Customs, in 1382 of 
the Petty Customs, and in 1386 Member of Par- 
liament for Kent. 

36. Chaucer's English Period. — It is in the 
next period, from 1384 to 1390, that he left behind 
(except in the borrowing of his subjects) Italian in- 
fluence as he had left French, and became entirely 
himself, entirely English. The comparative poverty 
in which he now lived, and the loss of his offices, 
for in John of Gaunt's absence court favour was 
withdrawn from him, may have given him more 
time for study and the retired life of a poet. At 
least in his Le^^e?ide of Good Wo7nen, the prologue to 
which was written in 13S5, we find him a closer 
student than ever of books and of nature. His 



II J J-A'OM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. 45 

ap[)ointment as Clerk of the Works in 13S9 brouj^ht 
him again into contact with men. He sui^enntended 
the repairs and building at the Pakace of Westminster, 
the Tower, and St. George's Chapel, \Vindsor, till 
July, 1 39 1, when he was supersetled, and lived on 
pensions allotted to him by Richard, and by Henry IV., 
after he had sent that king in 1399 his Coinpleint to 
his Purse. Before 1390, however, he had added to 
his great work its mosu English tales ; the Miller, the 
Reeve, the Cook, the Wife of Bath, the Merchant, 
the Friar, the Nun, Priest, Pardoner, and perhaps the 
Sompnour. The Prologue was probably written in 
1 388. In these, in their humour, in their vividness of 
portraiture, in their ease of narration, and in the variety 
of their characters, Chaucer shines supreme. A few 
smaller poems belong to this time, such as Truth and 
the Moder 0/ God. 

During the last ten years of his life, which may be 
called the period of his decay, he wrote some small 
poems, and along widi the Coniphynte of Venus, and a 
prose treatise on the Astrolabe, three more Canterbury 
tales, the Canon's-yeoman's, Manciple's, and Parsone's. 
The last was written the year of his death, 1400. 
Having done this work he died in a house under the 
shadow of the Abbey of Westminster. Within the 
walls of the Abbey Church, the first of the poets who 
lies there, that " sacred and happy spirit " sleeps. 

37. Chaucer s Character. — Born of the trades- 
man class, Chaucer was in every sense of the word 
one of our finest gentlemen : tender, graceful in 
thought, glad of heart, humorous, and satirical 
without unkindness ; sensitive to every change of 
feeling in himself and others, and therefore full of 
sympathy ; brave in misfortune, even to mirth, and 
doing well and with careful honesty all he undertook. 
His first and great delight was in human nature, and 
he makes us love the noble characters in his poems, 
and feel with kindliness towards the baser and ruder 



46 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

sort. He never sneers, for he had a wide charity, and 
we can always smile in his pages at the follies and for- 
give the sins of men. He had a true and chivalrous 
regard for women of his own class, and his wife and he 
ought to have been very happy if they had fulfilled the 
ideal he had of marriage.^ He lived in aristocratic 
society, and yet he thought him the greatest gentleman 
who was *' most vertiious ahvay, prive, and pert (open), 
and most entendeth aye to do the gentil dedes that he 
can." He lived frankly among men, and as we have 
seen, saw many different types of men, and in his 
own time filled many parts as a man of the world and 
of business. Yet, with all this active and observant 
life, he was commonly very quiet and kept much to 
himself. The Host in the Tales japes at him for his 
lonely, abstracted air. " Thou lookest as thou wouldest 
find a hare. And ever on the ground I see thee stare." 
Being a good scholar, he read morning and night alone, 
and he says that after his (olhce) work he would go 
home and sit at another book as dumb as a stone, till 
his look was dazed. While at study and when he was 
making of songs and ditties, "nothing else that God 
had made " had any interest for him. There was but 
one thing that roused him then, and that too he liked 
to enjoy alone. It was the beauty of the morning and 
the fields, the woods, and streams, and flowers, and 
the singing of the little birds. This made his heart 
full of revel and solace, and when spring came after 
winter, he rose with the lark and cried, " Farewell, my 
book and my devotion." He was the first who made 
the love of nature a distinct element in our poetry. 
He was the first who, in spending the whole day 
gazing alone on the daisy, set going that lonely delight 
in natural scenery which is so special a mark of our 
later poets. He lived thus a double life, in and out 

^ If we may jud/e from the pnems — see especially his marriage 
Poem to Bukton — he was even more unhappy than Shakspere in 
his married life. 



II.] FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. 47 

of the world, but never a gloomy one. For he was 
fond of mirth and good-living, and when he grew 
towards age, was portly of waist, '•' no poppet to 
embrace." But he kept to the end his elfish coun- 
tenance, the shy, delicate, half mischievous face which 
looked on men from its grey hair and forked beard, 
and was set oft' by his dark-coloured dress and hood. 
A knife and inkhorn hung on his dress ; we see a 
rosary in his hand; and when he was alone he walked 
swiftly. 

38. The Canterbury Tales. — Of his work it is 
not easy to speak briefly, because of its great 
variety. Enough has been said of it, with the ex- 
ception of his most complete creation, the Can- 
terbury Tales. It will be seen from the dates given 
above that they were not written at one time. 
They are not, and cannot be looked on as a whole. 
Many were written independently, and then fitted 
into the framework of the Prologue in 13S8. At 
that time a number more were written, and the 
rest added at intervals till his death. In fact, the 
whole thing was done much in the same way as Mr. 
Tennyson has written his Idylls of the Ki?ig. The 
manner in which he knitted them together was very 
simple, and likely to please the English people. The 
holiday excursions of the time were the pilgrimages, 
and the most famous and the pleasantest pilgrimage 
to go, especially for Londoners, was the three or four 
days' journey to see the shrine of St. Thomas at 
Canterbury. Persons of all ranks in life met and 
travelled together, starting from a London inn. 
Chaucer seized on this as the frame in which to set 
his pictures of life. He grouped around the jovial 
host of the Tabard Inn men and women of every 
class of society in England, set them on horseback 
to ride to Canterbury, and mad: each of them tell a 
tale. No one could hit off a character better, and in 
his Prologue, and in the prologues to the several Tales, 
4* 5 



48 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [:haf. 

the whole of the new, vigorous Enghsh society which 
had grown up since Edward I. is painted with as- 
tonishing vividness. " I see all the pilgrims in the 
Canterbury Tales" says Dryden, " their humours, their 
features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if I had 
supped with them at the Tabard in South wark." 
The Tales themselves take in the whole range of the 
poetry of the middle ages ; the legend of the saint, 
the romance of the Knight, the wonderful fables of 
the traveller, the coarse tale of common life, the 
love story, the allegory, the satirical lay, and the 
apologue. And they are pure tales. He is not in 
any sense a dramatic writer ; he is our greatest story- 
teller in verse. All the best tales are told easily, 
sincerely, with great grace, and yet with so much 
homeliness, that a child would understand them. 
Sometimes his humour is broad, sometimes sly, 
sometimes gay, sometimes he brings tears into our 
eyes, and he can make us smile or be sad as he 
pleases. 

He had a very fine ear for the music of verse, and 
the tale and the verse go together like voice and music. 
Indeed, so softly flowing and bright are they, that to 
read them is like listening in a meadow full of sun- 
shine to a clear stream rippling over its bed of 
])ebbles. The English in which they are written is 
almost the English of our time ; and it is literary 
Enghsh. Chaucer made our tongue into a true means 
of poetry. He did more, he welded together the 
French and English elements in our language and 
made them into one English tool for the use of 
literature, and all our prose writers and poets derive 
their tonsjue from the language of the Canterbury 
Tales. They give him honour for this, but still more 
for that he was the first English artist. Poetry is an 
art, and the artist in poetry is one who writes for pure 
pleasure and for nothing else the thing he writes, and 
who desires to give to others the same fine pleasure by 



II.] FROM THE CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. 49 

his poems which he had in writing them. The thing 
he most cares about is that the form in whicli he puts 
his thoughts or feelings may be perfectly fitting to the 
subject, and as beautiful as possible — but for this h^^ 
cares very greatly ; and in this Chaucer stands apart 
from the other poets of his time. Gower wrote with 
a set object, and nothing can be duller tlian the form 
in which he puts his tales. The author of Fiers 
the Floivman wrote with the object of reform in social 
and ecclesiastical aftairs, and his form is uncouth and 
liarsh. Chaucer wrote because he was full of emotion 
and joy in his own thoughts, and thought that others 
would weep and be glad with him, and the only time 
he ever moralises is in the talcs of the Yeoman and 
the Manciple, written in his decay. He has, then, the 
best right to the poet's name. He is our first English 
artist. 

39. Mandeville.— I have already noticed the 
prose of Wiclif under the religious class of English 
work. I have kept Sir John Mandeville for this place, 
because he belongs to light literature. He is called 
our "first writer in formed English," and his English 
is that spoken at court in the later years of PMward HI. 
Chaucer himself however wrote some things, and 
especially one of his Tales, in an involved prose, and 
John of Trevisa translated into English prose, 1387, 
Higden's Polychronicon. Mandeville wrote his Travels 
first in Latin, then in French, and finally put them 
into our tongue about 1356, *' that every man of the 
nation might understand them." His quaint delight 
in telling his " traveller's tales," and sometimes the 
grace with which he tells them, rank him among the 
story-tellers of England. What he himself saw he 
describes accurately, and he saw a great part of the 
world. Thirty-four years he wandered, even to the 
Tartars of Cathay, and then, unwearied, wrote his 
book at home. 



50 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

CHAPTER III. 

FROM CHAUCER, 1400, TO ELIZABETH, 1559- 

Thomas HoccLve (Ilenry V.'s reign) ; J- l.yd-jate, Falls of Princes 
(ill Henry VI.). — Sir John P'ortescue's probe v\ ork, and Sir T. 
Malory's Morte cT Arthur (Edward IV.). — Caxton prints at 
Vv'estminster, 1477. — Fasten Letters, 1422—1505. — Hawes' 
Pastime of Pleasure, 1506. — John Skelton's poems, 1508 — 
1529. -Sir T. More's History of Richard ///., 1513.— 
'J ynrlale's Translation of the Bible, 1525. — Eugl'sh Prayer 
Book, 1549. — Ascham's Toxophilus, 1545- — Poems of 
Wyatt and Surrey, in TotteVs Miscellany, 1557. 
SCOT'I'ISH Poetry, begins with Barbour's Bruce, 1375 — 7 ; 
James I.'s Kiitsfs Quhair, 1424. — T. Henryson dies, 1508. 
— Dunbar's 'J histle and Rose, 1503- — Gawin I "ouglas dies, 
1522 —Sir D. Lyndsay born, 1490 ; Satire of Ihree 
Estates, 1535 ; dies 1555. 

40. The Fifteenth Century Poetry.— The 
last poems of Chaucer and Langland bring our story 
up to 1400. The hundred years that followed is the 
most barren in our literature. The influence of 
Chaucer lasted, and of the poems attributed to him, 
but now rejected by scholars, some certainly belong 
to the first half of this century. The Cotc7i of Love^ 
The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, The Floiver and the 
Leaf the Complaint of the Black Knight, stated by 
Shirley, Chaucer's contemporary, to be Lydgate's, 
Chaiicei's Dream, A Goodly Ballad of Chancer, A 
P^'aise of Women, Leanlte 7>attlt Richesse, Proverbes of 
Chancer,"^ the last two stanzas of which are a separate 
poem attributed by Shirley to " Halsam, squiere," 
the Ponndel, the Virelai, and Chaucer's Prophecy, are 
with the Romau7it of the Rose (which I cannot sur- 
render), held by Mr. Bradshaw not to be Chaucer's. 
They will be found in the editions of Chaucer, and 
^ Morris's Chaucer, vi. 303. 



III.] FROM CHA UCER TO ELIZA BE TIL 5 r 

some of them, especially The FIo7ver and ilir /<v//and 
The Cuckoo and the Ni\i^h(in}:[ale, prove that thcrj were 
potts who could, (luring this century, not only imitate 
the style, but also drink of the spirit of Chau( or. 

41. Thomas Hoccleve, a bad versiritr of the 
reign of Henry V., loved Chaucer well. " With his loss 
the whole land smartiih," he said ; and in the MS. of his 
longest poem, the Governail of Princes^ written before 
14 1 3, he caused to be drawn, with fond idolatry, the 
portrait of his " master dear and father reverent,*' who 
had enlumined all the land with his books. 

42. John Lydgate was a more worthy follower 
of Chaucer. A monk of Bury, and thirty years of age 
when Chaucer died, he yet wrote nothing of much 
importance till the reign of Henry VI. He was a 
gay and pleasant person, though a long-winded poet, 
and he seems to have lived even in his old age, when 
he recalls himself as a boy '* weeping for naught, 
anon after glad," the fresh and natural life of one who 
enjoyed everything ; but, like many gay persons, 
he had a vein of melancholy, and some of his best 
work, at least in the poet Gray's opinion, belongs 
to the realms of pathetic and moral poetry. But 
there was scarcely any literary work he could not 
do. He rimed history, ballads, and legends, till the 
monastery was delighted. He made pageants for 
Henry VI., masks and May-games for aldermen, 
mummeries for the Lord Mayor, and satirical ballads 
on the follies of the day. Educated at Oxford, a 
traveller in France and Italy, he knew the literature of 
his time, and he even dabbled in the sciences. He 
was as much a lover of nature as Chaucer, but cannot 
make us feel the beauty of nature in the same way. 
It is his story-telling which links him closest to his 
master. His three chief poems were the Falls of 
Princes^ the Stone of Thebes j and the Troye Book. 
The first is a translation of a French version of 
Boccaccio's De Casibus Viroruni et Feminaruni Illus- 



52 ENGLISH LITERA TURE. [chap. 

trium. It tells the tragic fates of great men and 
women from the time of Adam to the capture of King 
John of France at Poitiers. The plan is dramatic ; 
the sorrowful dead appear before Boccaccio, pensive 
in his library, and each tells of his downfall. The 
Stone of Thebes is introduced as an additional Canter- 
bury Tale, and is made into a chivalric romance. 
The Iroye Book is a version from the French of Guido 
di Colonna's prose romance. A hundred years, as 
we shall see, did not exhaust his influence, for in the 
Mirror of Magistrates, eight poets united to write a 
su Implement to his Falls of Princes. 

A few minor poets do no more now than keep 
poetry alive. Another version of the Troy Story in 
Henry VI. 's time ; Hugh de Campeden's Sidrac, 
Thomas Chestre's Lay of Sir Launfal, and the transla- 
tion of the Earl of 'J'oulouse, prove that romances were 
still taken from the French. William Lichfield's Com- 
plaifit betweeti God a?id Man, and William Nassington's 
Miirrour of Life, carry on the religious, and the Tour- 
nament of lottcnham the satirical, poetry. John Cap- 
grave's translation of the Life of St. Catherine ys, less 
known than his Chivnicle of England dedicated to 
Edward IV. He. with John Harding, a soldier of 
Agincourt, whose riming Chronicle belongs to Edward 
I V.'s reign, continue the historical poetry. A number of 
obscure versifiers, Thomas Norton, and George Ripley 
who wrote on alchemy, and Dame Juliana Berners' 
book on Hunting, bring us to the reign of Henry VIL, 
when Skelton first began to write. Meanwhile poetry, 
which had decayed in England, was flourishing in 
Scotland (p. 62). 

43. Ballads, lays, fragments of romances, had 
been sung in England from the earliest times, and 
popular tales and jokes took form in short lyric pieces, 
to be accompanied with music and dancing. In fact 
the ballad went over the whole land among the people. 
The trader, the apprentices, and poor of the cities, 



III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 53 

tlie peasantry, had their own songs. They tended to 
collect themselves round some legendary name like 
Robin Hood, or some historical character made 
legendary, like Randolf, Earl of Chester. Sloth, in 
Ficrs Plowman's Vision^ does not know his pater- 
noster, but he does know the rimes of these heroes. 
A crowd of minstrels sang them through city and 
village. The very friar sang them *' and made his 
Englissch swete upon his timge." A collection of 
Robin Hood ballads was printed under the title A 
Geste of Robyn Ilode, by Chepman and Myllar in Edin- 
burgh, about 1506, and soon after as A Lytd Geste 
of Robin Hood, by Wynkcn de Worde. The Nut Brown 
Maid, about 150c- 1502, Tlie Battle of Otterburn, 
about 1460, and Cliay Chase, after 1460, belong to 
the end of 1400 and the beginning of 1500. It was 
not however till much later that any collection of bal- 
lads was made ; and (tvj, in the form we possess them, 
can be dated farther back than the reign of Elizabeth. 
44. Prose Literature. — The work that Mande- 
ville had begun as the first writer of new English prose, 
that Chaucer, and Wiclif assisted by Purvey and Here- 
ford, had continued, was worthily carried on in the 
fifteenth century by four masters of English prose, 
Pecock, Mallory, Eortescue, and Caxton. The re- 
ligious war between the Lollards and the Church raged 
during the reigns of Henry V. and Henry VI., and 
in the time of the latter Reginald Pecock took it 
out of Latin into homely English. He fought the Lol- 
lards with their own weapons, with public sermons in 
English, and with tracts in English ; and after 1449, 
when Bishop of Chichester, published his work, lyie 
Repressor of overniuch Blaming of the Clergy. It 
pleased neither party. The Lollards disliked it 
because it defended die customs and doctrines of the 
Church. Churchmen burnt it because it agreed with 
the *' Bible-men," that the I>ible was the only rule of 
faith. Both abjured it because it said that doctrines 



54 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

were to be proved from the Bible by reason. Pecock 
is the first of all the Church theologians who wrote in 
English, and the book is a fine example of our early 
prose. 

Sir John Fortescue's book on thj Dlffereiice be- 
t'iveen Absolute and Lijuited Monarchy, in Edward IV.'s 
rei^n, is less fine an example of the prose of English 
politics than Sir Thomas Malory's Le iVJ orte d' Arthur 
IS of the prose of chivalry. This book, arranged and 
modelled into an epic from French and contem- 
porary English materials, is the work of a man of 
genius, and was ended in the ninth year of Edward 
IV., fifteen years before Caxton had finished printing 
it. Its prose, in its staid simplicity, may well have 
charmed Caxton, who printed it with all the care of 
one who "loved the noble acts of chivalry." Caxton's 
own work added to tiie prose of England. Born of 
Kentish parents, he went to the Low Countries in 
T440, and learned his trade. The first book said to 
have been printed in this country was The Game and 
Playe of the Chesse, 1474. The first book that bears 
the inscription, " Imprynted by me, William Caxton, at 
Westmynstre,"is The Dlctes and Sayings of Fhilosophe?-s. 
But the first English book Caxton made, and finished 
at Cologne in 1471, was his translation of the Reaiyell 
of the Historyes of Troy, and in this book, and in his 
translation of Reyriard the Fox from the Dutch, in his 
translation of the Golden Legend, and his re-editing of 
Trevisa's Chronicle, in which he "changed the rude 
and old English," he kept, by the fixing power of the 
press, the Midland English which Chaucer had esta- 
blished as the tongue of Hterature, from further degra- 
dation. Forty years later Tyndale's New Testament 
fixed it for ever as the standard English, and the 
Elizabethan writers kept it in its purity. 

45. Influences which laid the Foundations 
of the Elizabethan Literature. — The first of these 
grew out of Caxton's work. John Shirley, a gentleman 



III.] FuOM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 55 

of good family, and Chaucer's contemporary, who died, 
a very old man, in 1449, deserves mention as a trans- 
criber and preserver of the works of Chaucer and Lyd- 
gate,but Caxton fulfilled the task Shirley had begun. 
He printed Chaucer and Lydgate and Cower with zea- 
lous care. He printed the Chronicle of the Brut, and 
Higden's Polychronicon ; he secured for us the Morie 
d' Arthur. He had a tiadesman's interest in publish- 
ing the romances, for they were the reading of the 
day ; but he could scarcely have done better for the 
interests of the coming literature. These books 
nourished the imagination of England, and supplied 
poet after poet with fine subjects for work, or fine 
frames for their subjects. He had not a tradesman's, 
but a loving literary interest in printing the old 
English poets ; and in sending them out from his press 
Caxton kept up the continuity of English poetry. 
The poets after him at once be^an on the models 
of Chaucer and Cower and Lydgate ; and the books 
themselves being more widely read, not only made 
poets but a public that loved poetry. The imi)rinting 
of old English poetry was one of the sources in this 
century of the Elizabethan literature. 

The second source was the growth of an interest in 
classic literature. All through the last two-thirds of this 
century, though so little creative work was done, the 
interest in that literature grew. The Wars of the Roses 
did not stop the reading of books. The Pasto?i Letters, 
1422 — 1505, the correspondence of a country family 
from Henry VI. to Henry VH., are pleasantly, even 
correctly written, and contain passages which refer to 
translations of the classics and to manuscripts sent to 
and fro for reading. A great number of French trans- 
lations of the Latin classics were widely read in 
England. Henry VL, Edward IV., and some of the 
great nobles were lovers of books. Men like Duke 
Humphrey of Gloucester made libraries and brought 
over Italian scholars to England to translate Greek 



56 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

works. There were fine scholars in England, like John, 
Lord Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who had won fame in 
the schools of Italy, and whose translations of Cicero's 
£>e Amicit'ui and of Caesar's De Bello GaLico prove, 
with his Latin letters, how worthy he was of the praise 
of Padua and the gratitude of Oxford. He added 
many MSS. to the library of Duke Humphrey. Many 
men, like Robert Fiemmyng, Dean of Lincoln ; John 
Gunthorpe, Dean of Wells ; William Grey, Bishop 
of Ely; John Phreas, Provost of Balliol, William 
Sellynge, Fellow of All Souls, studied at Ferrara 
under Baptista Guarini, and collected MSS. in Italy 
of the classics, with which they enriched the libraries of 
England. There was therefore in England a swiftly- 
growing interest in the ancient writers. 

46. The Influence of the Italian Revival. — 
Such an interest was made and deepened by the revival 
of letters which arose after 1453 in Italy, and we have 
seen that before the last two decades of the fifteenth 
century many Englishmen had gone to Italy to read 
and study the old Greek authors on whom the scholars 
driven from Constantinople by the Turks were lecturing 
in the schools of Florence. The New Learning in- 
creased in England, and passed on into the sixteenth 
century, until it decayed for a time in the violence of 
the religious struggle. But we had now begun to do our 
own work as translators of the classics, and the young 
English scholars whom the Italian revival had awakened 
filled year after year the land with English versions of 
the ancient writers of Rome and Greece. It is in this 
growing influence of the great classic models of litera- 
ture that we find the gathering together of another of 
the sources of that great Elizabethan literature which 
seems to arise so suddenly, but which had, in reality, 
been long preparing. 

47. Prose under Henry VIII. — The reigns of 
Richard III. and of Henry VII. brought forth no prose 
of any worth, but the country awakened from its dul- 



III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 57 

ness with the accession of Henry VIII., 1509. John 
Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, with Wilham Lilly, the gram- 
marian, set on foot a school where the classics were 
taught in a new and practical way, and between the 
year 1 500 and the Reformation twenty grammar-schools 
were established. Erasmus, who had all the enthu- 
siasm which sets others on fire, had come to England 
in 1497, and found Grocyn and Linacre at Oxford, 
teaching the Greek they had learnt from Chalcondylas 
at Elorence. He learnt Greek from them, and found 
eager admiration of his own scholarship in Bishop 
Fisher, Sir Thomas More, Colet, and Archbishop 
Warham. From these men a liberal and moderate 
theology spread, which soon, however, perished in the 
heats of the Reformation. But the new learning they 
had started urew rapidly, assisted by the munificence 
of Wolscy ; and Cambridge, under Cheke and Smith, 
excelled even Oxford in Greek learning. The study 
of the great classics set free the minds of men, stirred 
and gave life to letters, and woke up English prose 
from its sleep. Its earliest effort was its best. It was 
in 15 13 (not printed till 1557) that Thomas More 
wrote our first history in English, of Edward V.'s life 
and Richard III.'s usurpation. The simplicity of his 
genius showed itself in the style, and his wit in the 
picturesque method and the dramatic dialogue that 
graced the book. The stately historical step was 
laid aside by More in the tracts of nervous English 
with which he replied to Tyndale, but both his styles 
are remarkable for their purity. Of all the *' strong 
words" he uses, three out of four are Teutonic. More's 
most famous work, the Utopia, 15^6, was written in 
Latin, but was translated afterwards, in 155 i, by Ralph 
Robinson. It tells us more of the curiosity the New 
Learning:; had awakened in Englishmen concerning all 
the problems of life, society, government, and religion, 
than any other book of the time. It is the representative 
book of that short but well-defined period which we 



58 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

may call English Renaissatice before the Refonjiaiion. 
Much of the progress of prose was due to the patron- 
age of the young king. It was the king who asked 
Lord Berners to translate Froissart, a book which in 
1523 made a landmark in our tongue. It was the 
king who supported Sir Thomas Elyot in his effort 
to improve education, and encouraged him to write 
books (1531-46) in the vulgar tongue that he might 
please his countrymen. It was the king who made 
Leland, our first English writer on antiquarian sub- 
jects, the " King's Antiquary," 1533. It was the king 
to whom Roger Ascham dedicated his first work, 
and who sent him abroad to pursue his studies. This 
book, the Toxophilus, or the School of Shooting, 1545, 
was written for the pleasure of the yeomen and gentle- 
men of England in their own tongue. Ascham apolo- 
gises for this, and the apology marks the state of 
English prose. "Everything has been done excel- 
lently well in Greek and Latin, but in the English 
tongue so meanly that no man can do worse." But 
Ascham's quaint English has its charm, and he did not 
know that the very rudeness of language of which he 
complained was in reaUty laying the foundations of 
an English more Teutonic and less Latin than the 
English of Chaucer. 

48. Prose and the Reformation. — The bigotry 
and the avarice and the violent controversy of the 
Reformation killed for a time the New Learning, but it 
did a vast work for English literature in its translation 
of the Bible. William Tyndale's Translation of the 
New Testament, 1525, fixed our standard English once 
for all, and brought it finally into every English 
home. Tyndale held fast to pure English. In his 
two volumes of political tracts " there are only twelve 
Teutonic words which are now obsolete, a strong 
proof of the influence his translation of the Bible has 
had in preserving the old speech of England." Of the 
6,000 words of the Authorised Version, still in a great 



III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 59 

part his translation, only 250 are not now in common 
use. " Three out of four of his nouns, adverbs, and 
verbs are Teutonic." And he spoke sharply enough 
to those who said our tongue was so rude that the 
Bible could not be translated into it. " It is not so 
rude as they are false liars. For the Greek tongue 
agreeth more with the English than the Latin ; a thou- 
sand parts better may it be translated into the English 
than into the Latin." 

Tyndale was helped in his English Bible by William 
Roy, a runaway friar ; and his friend Rogers, the first 
martyr in Queen Mary's reign, added the translation 
of the Apocrypha^ and made up what was wanting in 
Tyndale's translation from Chronicljs to Malachi out 
of Coverdale's translation. It was this Bible which, 
revised by Coverdale and edited and re-edited as 
Cromwell s Bible, 1539, and again as Cra/uners Bible, 
1540, was set up in every parish church in England, 
it got north into Scotland and made the Lowland 
English more like the London English. It passed 
over to the Protestant settlements in Ireland. After 
its revisal in 161 1 it went with the Puritan Fathers to 
New England and fixed the standard of English in 
America. Eighty millions of people now speak the 
English of Tyndale's Bible, and there is no book which 
has had so great an influence on the style of English 
literature and the standard of English Prose. In 
PMward VI. 's reign also Cranmer edited the English 
Prayer Book, 1549-52. Its English is a good deal 
mixed with Latin words, and its style is sometimes weak 
or heavy, but on the whole it is a fine example of 
stately prose. It also steadied our speech. Latimer, 
on the contrary, whose Sermon on the Ploughers and 
others were delivered in 1549 and in 1552, wrote 
in a plain, shrewd style, which by its humour and 
rude directness made him the first preacher of his day. 
On the whole the Reformation fixed and confirmed 
our English tongue, but at the same time it brought 
6 



6o ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

ia through theology a large number of Latin words. 
The pairing of English and Latin words {acknowledge 
and confess, &c.) in the Prayer Book is a good example 
of both these results. 

49. Poetry in the Sixteenth Century under 
the Influence of Chaucer. — We shall speak in this 
section only of the poets in England whose work was 
due to the publication of Chaucer, Gower, and 
I^ydgate by Caxton, and go back also to the Scotch 
poetry which owed itself to the impulse of Chaucer. 
After a short revival that influence died, and a new 
one entered from Italy into English verse in the poems 
of Surrey and VVyatt. The transition period between 
the one influence and the other is of great interest, 
and is connected with the names ot Hawes and 
Skelton. 

Stephen Hawes, in the reign of Henry VH., re- 
presented the transition by an imitation of the old 
work. Amid many poems, more imitative of Lyd- 
gate than of Chaucer, his long allegorical poem, en- 
titled the Pastime of Pleasure, is the best. In fact, it 
is the first, since the middle of the fifteenth century, 
m. which Imagination agam began to plume her wings 
and soar. Within the realm of art, it corresponded to 
that effort to resuscitate the dead body of the Old 
Chivalry which Henry VIII, and Francis I. attempted. 
It goes back for its inspiration to the Roi7iance of the 
Rose, and is an allegory of the right education of a 
knisiht, showing how Grand Amour won at last La 
Bel Pucell. But, like all false resurrections, it died 
quickly. 

On the other hand, John Skelton represents the 
transition by at first following the old poetry, and then, 
pressed upon by the storm of human life in the pre- 
sent, by taking an original line. His imitative poetry 
belongs mostly to Henry VII.'s time, but when the 
religious and political disturbances began in Henry 
VIII.'s time, Skelton became excited by the cry of the 



III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 6i 

l)eople for Churcii reformation. His poem, Why 
come ye not to Court i was a fierce satire on the great 
Cardinal. That of Colin Clout was the cry of the 
country CoHn, and of the Clout or mechanic of the 
town against the corruption of the Church ; and it 
represents the whole popular feeling of the time just 
before the movement of the Reformation took a new 
turn from the opposition of the Pope to Henry's 
divorce. Both are written in short "rude rayling 
rimes, pleasing only the popular ear," and Skelton 
chose them for that purpose. Both have a rough, 
impetuous power ; their language is coarse, full even 
of slang, but Skelton could use any language he 
pleased. He was an admirable scholar. Erasmus 
calls him the " glory and light of English letters," and 
Caxton says that he improved our language. His 
poem, the Boivge of Court (rewards of court), is full of 
powerful satire against the corruption of the times, 
and of vivid impersonations of the virtues and vices. 
But ho was not only the satirist. The pretty and new 
love lyrics that we owe to him foreshadow the P21i/a- 
bethan imagination and life ; and the Boke of Phyllyp 
Sparowe, which tells the s;rief of a nun called Jane 
Scrope for the death of her sparrow, in one of the 
gayest and most inventive poems in the language. 
Skelton stands quite alone between the decay of the 
direct influence of Chaucer, whose last true imitator he 
was, and the rise of a new Italian influence in England 
in the poems of Surrey and Wyatt. In his own special 
work he was entirely original, and standing thus be- 
tween two periods of poetry, he is a kind of landmark 
in English literature. The Ship of Fooles, 1508, by 
Barclay, is of this time, but it has no value. It is a 
recast of a work published at Basel. It was pojiular 
because it attacked the follies and questions of the 
time. Its sole interest to us is in its pictures of 
familiar manners and popular customs. But Barclay 
did other work, and he was the first who brought the 



62 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

eclogue into England. With him the transition time 
is over, and the curtain is ready to rise on the Eliza- 
bethan age of poetry. While we wait, we will make an 
interlude out of the work of the poets of Scotland. 

SCOTTISH POETRY. 

50. Scottish Poetry is poetry written in the 
English tongue by men living in Scotland. These 
men, though calling themselves Scotchmen, are of 
good English blood. But the blood, as I think, was 
mixed with an infusion of Celtic blood. 

Old Northumbria extended from the Humber to 
the Firth of Forth, leaving however on its western 
border a Une of unconquered land, which took in 
Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmorland in our 
England, and, over the border, most of the western 
country between the Clyde and Solway Firth. This 
unconquered country was the Welsh kingdom of 
Strathclyde, and was dwelt in by the Celtic race. 
The present English part of it was soon conquered 
and the Celts driven out. But in the part to the north 
of the Solway Firth the Celts were not driven out. 
They remained, lived with the Englishmen who were 
settled over the old Northumbria, intermarried with 
them and became under Scot kings one mixed 
people. Literature in the Lowlands then would have 
Celtic elements in it; literature in England was 
purely Teutonic. The one sprang from a mixed, the 
other from an unmixed race. I draw attention to this, 
because it seems to me to account for certain peculi- 
arities which, especially Celtic, are infused through the 
whole of Scottish poetry. 

51. Celtic Elements of Scottish Poetry. — 
The first of these is the love of wild nature for its 
oicn sake. There is a passionate, close, and poetical 
observation and description of natural scenery in 
Scotland from the earliest times of its poetry, such 



III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 63 

as we do not possess in Knglish poetry till thj time of 
Wordsworth. The second is the love of colour. All 
early Scottish poetry ditifers from English in the extra- 
ordinary way in which colour is insisted on. and at 
times in the lavish exaggeration of it. Tiie third 
is the wifiier and coarser /tumour in the Scottish 
poetry, which is distinctly Celtic in contrast with 
that humour which has its root in sadness and which 
belongs to the Teutonic races. Few things are really 
more different than the humour of Chaucer and the 
humour of Dunbar, than the humour of Cowper and 
the humour of Burns. These are the special Celtic 
elements in the Lowland poetry. 

52. Its National Elements came into it from 
the circumstances under which Scotland rose into a 
separate kingdom. The first of these is the strong, 
almost fierce assertion of national life. The Kng- 
lish were as national as the Scots, and felt the 
emotion of patriotism as strongly. But they had no 
need to assert it ; they were not oppressed. But for 
nearly forty years the Scotch resisted for their very life 
the efforts of England to conquer them. And the 
war of freedom left its traces on their poetry from 
Barbour to Burns and Walter Scott in the almost 
obtrusive way in which Scotland, and Scottish liberty, 
and Scottish heroes are thrust forward in their verse. 
Their passionate nationality appears in another form 
in their descriptive poetry. The natural description 
of Chaucer, Shakspere, or even Milton, is not dis- 
tinctively English. But in Scotland it is always the 
scenery of their own land that the poets describe. 
Even when they are imitating Chaucer they do not 
imitate his conventional landscape. They put in a 
Scotch landscaj)e ; and in tiie work of such men as 
Gawin Douglas the love of Scotland and the love of 
nature mingle their influences together to make him 
sit down, as it were, to paint, with his eye on every- 
thing he paints, a scries of Scotch landscapes. 
6* 



64 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

53. Its Individual Element. — There is one 
more special element in early Scotch poetry which 
arose, I think, out of its pohtical circumstances. 
All through the struggle for freedom, carried on 
as it was at first by small bands under separate 
leaders till they all came together under a leader 
like Bruce, a much greater amount of individuality, 
and a greater habit of it, was created among the 
Scotch than among the English. Men fought for 
their own land and lived in their own way. Every 
little border chieftain, almost every border farmer 
was or felt himself to be his own master. The 
poets would be likely to share in this individual 
quaUty, and in spite of the overpowering influence of 
Chaucer, to strike out new veins of poetic thought and 
new methods of poetic expression. And this is what 
happened. Long before forms of poetry like the 
short pastoral or the fable had appeared in England, 
the Scottish poets had started them. They were less 
docile imitators than the English, but their work in 
the new forms they started was not so good as the 
after English work in the same forms. 

54. The first of the Scottish poets, omitting Thomas 
of Erceldoune, is John Barbour, Archbishop of 
Aberdeen. His long poem of The Bruce^ 13 7 5-7? 
represents the whole of the eager struggle for 
Scottish freedom against the English which closed 
at Bannockburn ; and the national spirit, which I 
have mentioned, springs in it, full grown, into life. 
But it is temperate, it does not pass into the fury 
ag^ainst England, which is so plain in writers like 
Blind Harry, who, about 1461, composed a long 
poem in the heroic couplet of Chaucer on the deeds 
of William Wallace. Barbour was often in England 
for the sake of study, and his patriotism though strong 
is tolerant of England. In Henry V.'s reign, Andrew 
OF Wyntoun wrote his Oryginale Cronykil of Scot- 
land, one of the riming chronicles of the time. It is 



HI.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 65 

only in the next poet that we find the influence 
of Chaucer, and it is hereafter continuous till the 
Elizabethan time. Jamp:s the First of Scotland 
was prisoner in England for nineteen years, till 1422. 
There he read Chaucer, and foil in love with Lady 
jane Beaufort, niece of Henry IV. The poem which 
he wrote — Ihe Kings Qiihair (the quire or book) — is 
done in imitation of Chaucer, and in Chaucer's seven- 
lined stanza, which from James's use of it is called 
Rime Royal. In six cantos, sweeter, tenderer, and 
purer than any verse till we come to Spenser, he 
describes the beginning of his love and its happy end. 
"I must write," he says, "so much because I have 
come so from Hell to Heaven." Nor did the flower 
of his love and hers ever fade. She defended him in 
the last ghastly scene of murder when his kingly life 
ended. Though imitative of Chaucer, his work has 
an original element in it. The natural description is 
more varied, the colour is more vivid, and there is a 
modern self-reflective (juality, a touch of spiritual feel- 
ing which does not belong to Chaucer at all. The 
poems of The Kirk on the Green and Peebles to the 
Flay have been attributed to him. If they be his, 
he originated a new vein of poetry, which Burns 
afterwards carried out — the comic and satirical 
ballad poem. But they are more likely to be by 
James V. 

Robert Henrvson, who died before 1508, a school- 
master in J )unfermline, was also an imitator of Chaucer, 
and his lestament of Cresseid continues Chaucer's 
Troiliis. But he set on foot two new forms of poetry. 
He made poems out of ih^ fables. They ditTer entirely 
from the short, neat form in which Gay and La Fon- 
taine treated the fable. They are long stories, full of 
pleasant dialogue, political allusions, and with elabo- 
rate morals attached to them. They have a peculiar 
Scottish tang, and are full of descriptions of Scotch 
scenery. H.; also began the short pastoral in his 



66 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Robin and Alakyne. It is a natural, prettily-turned 
dialogue ; and a flashing Celtic wit, such as charms us 
in Duncan Grey, runs through it. The individuality 
which struck out two origiaal lines of poetic work in 
these poems appears again in his sketch of the graces 
of womanhood in the Garmeiit of Good Ladies; a 
poem of the same type as those thoughtful lyrics 
which describe what is best in certain phases of 
professions, or of life, such as Sir H. Wotton's Character 
of a Happv Life, or Wordsworth's ILappy Warrior. 

But among many poets whom we need not mention, 
the greatest is William Dunbar. He carries the 
influence of Chaucer on to the end of the fifteenth cen- 
tury and into the sixteenth. Few have possessed a more 
masculine genius, and his work was as varied in its 
range as it was original. He followed the form and 
plan of Chaucer in his two poems of The Thistle and 
the Rose, 1533, and the Golden Terge, 1508, the first 
on the marriage of James IV. to Margaret Tudor, the 
second an allegory of Love, Beauty, Reason, and the 
poet. In both, though they begin with Chaucer's 
conventional May morning, the natural description 
becomes Scottish, and in both the national enthusiasm 
of the poet is strongly mar.:ed. But he soon ceased 
to imitate. The vigorous fun of the satires and the 
satirical ballads that he wrote is only matched by their 
coarseness, a coarseness and a fun that descended to 
Burns. Perhaps Dunbar's genius is still higher in a 
wild poem in which he personifies the seven deadly 
sins, and describes their dance, with a mixture of 
horror and humour which makes the little thing 
unique. 

A man almost as remarkable as Dunbar is Gawin 
Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, who died in 1522, at 
the Court of Henry VIII., and was buiied in the 
Savoy. He is the author of tlu first metrical English 
translation from the original of any Latin book. He 
translated Ovid's Art of Love, and afterwards, with 



III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 67 

truth and spirit, the .F.neids of Vergil, 15 13. To each 
book of the /-Eneid \:i wrote a prologue of his own. 
And it is chiefly by these that he takes rank among 
the Scottish poets. Three of them are descriptions 
of the country in May, in Autumn, and in Winter. 
The scenery is altogether Scotch, and- the {t.\f 
Chaucerisms that appear seem absurdly out of place 
ill a picture of nature which is as close as if it had 
been done by Keats in his early time. The colour is 
superb, the landscape is described with an excessive 
detail, but it is not composed by any art into a whole. 
There is nothing like it in England till Thomson's 
Seasons, and Thomson was a .Scotchman. Only the 
Celtic love of nature can account for the vast distance 
between work li'^e this and contemporary work in 
England such as Skelton'.s. Of Douglas's other origi- 
nal work, one poem, the Palace of Honour, 1501, 
continues the influence of Chaucer. 

Thjre were a number of other Scottish poets who 
are all remembered by Dunbar in his Lament for the 
Makars, and praised by Sir David Lyndsay, whom 
it is best to mention in this place, because he still 
connects Scottish poetry with Chaucer. He was born 
about 1490, and is the last of the old Scottish school, 
and the most popular. He is the most popular 
because he is not only the Poet, but also the Reformer. 
His poem the Dreme, 1528, links him back to 
Chaucer. It is in the manner of the old poet But 
its scenery is Scottish, and instead of the May morn- 
ing of Chaucer, it opens on a winter's day of wind 
and sleet. The place is a cave over the sea, whence 
Lyndsay sees the weltering of the ocean. Chaucer 
goes to sleep over Ovid or Cicero, Lyndsay falls 
into a dream as he thinks of the ''false world's insta- 
bility," wavering like the sea waves. The diff'erence 
marks not only the diff'erence of the two countries, 
but the difl'erent natures of the men. Chaucer diei 
not care much for the popular storms, and loved the 



68 ENGLISH L HERA TURE [chap. 

Court more than the Commonweal. Lyndsay in the 
Dreme and in two other poems — the Co77iplamt to the 
King, and the Testament of the Kijig's Fapyngo — is 
absorbed in the evils and sorrows of the people, in 
the desire to reform the abuses of the Church, of the 
Court, of larty, of the nobility. In 1539 his Satij-e 
of the Three Estates, a Morality interspersed with 
interludes, was represented before James V. at Lin- 
lithgow. It was first acted in 1535, and was a daring 
attack on the ignorance, profligacy, and exactions of 
the priesthood, on the vices and flattery of the 
favourites — " a mocking of abuses used in the country 
by diverse sorts of estates." A still bolder poem, and 
one thought so even by himself, is the Monarchie, 
1553, his last work. Reformer as he was, he was 
more a social and political than a religious one. He 
bears the same relation to Knox as Langland did to 
Wiclif. When he was sixty-five years old he saw the 
fruits of his work. Ecclesiastical councils met to 
reform the Church. But the reform soon went beyond 
his temperate wishes. In 1557, the Reformation in 
Scotland was fairly launched, when in December the 
Congregation signed the Bond of Association. 
Lyndsay had died three years before ; he is as much 
the reformer, as he is the poet, of a transition time. 
"Still his verse hath charms," but it was neither sweet 
nor imaginative. He had genuine satire, great moral 
breadth, much preaching power in verse, coarse, 
broad humour in plenty, and more dramatic power 
and invention than the rest of his fellows. 

55. Italian Influence : Wyatt and Surrey. — 
While poetry under Skelton and Lyndsay became an 
instrument of reform, it revived as an art at the close 
of Henry VIII. 's reign in Sir Thomas Wyatt and 
the Earl of Surrey. They were both Italian 
travellers, and in bringing back to England the inspira- 
tion they had gained from Petrarca thev re-made 
English poetry. They are our first really modern 



III.] FROM CHAUCER TO ELIZABETH. 69 

I)oets ; the first who have anything of the modem 
manner. Though Itahan in sentiment, their language 
IS more Enghsh than Chaucer's, that is, they use fewer 
romance words. They handed down this purity of 
English to the lUizabethan poets, to backville, Spenser, 
and Shakspere. They introduced a - new kind of 
jjoetry, the amourist poetry. The " amourists," 
as they are called, were poets who composed a 
heries of poems on the subject of love — sonnets 
mingled with lyrical pieces after the manner of 
I'etrarca, and. in acccrd with the love philosophy 
he built on Plato. The Hundred Passions of Watson, 
the sonnets of Sidney, Shakspere, Spenser, and Drum- 
mond, are all poems of this kind, and the same 
impulse in a similar form appears in the sonnets of 
Rossetti and of Mrs. Browning. The subjects of 
Wyatt and Surrey were chiefly lyrical, and the fact 
that they imitated the same model has made some 
likeness between them. Like their personal characters, 
however, the poetry of Wyatt is the more thoughtful and 
the more strongly felt, but Surrey's has a sweeter move- 
ment and a livelier fancy. Both did this great thing 
for English verse — they chose an exquisite model, and 
• in imitating it "corrected the ruggedness of English 
poetry." Such verse as Skelton's became impossible. 
A new standard was made below^ which the after poets 
could not fall. They also added new stanza mea- 
sures to English verse, and enlarged in this way the 
" lyrical range." Surrey was the first, in his trans- 
lation of the Second and Eourth Books of VergiFs 
ALfieid, to use the ten syllabled, unrimed verse, 
which we now call blank verse. In his hands 
it is not worthy of praise; it had neither the true 
form nor harmony into which it grew afterwards. 
Sackville, Eord Buckhurst, introduced it into drama ; 
Marlowe, in his Tambur/aine, made it the proper 
verse of the drama, and Shakspere, Beaumont, and 
Massinger used it splendidly. In jjlays it has a 



70 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

special manner of its own ; in poetry proper it was, 
we may say, not only created but perfected by 
Milton. 

The new impulse thus given to poetry was all but 
arrested by the bigotry that prevailed during the 
reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, and all the work of 
the New Learning seemed to be useless. But Thomas 
Wilson's book in English on Rhetoric and Logic in 
1553, and the publication of Thomas Tusser's Fointts 
of Husbandrie and of Tottel's Miscellany of U?icertain 
Authors, 1557, in the last years of Mary's reign, 
proved that something was stirring beneath the gloom. 
The latter book contained the poems of Surrey and 
Wyatt, and others by Grimoald, by Lord Vaux, 
and Lord Berners. The date should be remembered, 
for it is the first printed book of modern English 
poetry. It proves that men cared now more for the 
new than the old poets, that the time of imitation of 
Chaucer was over, and that of original creation begun. 
It ushers in the Elizabethan literature. 



iv.J LITER^ITURE OF ELIZABETirS REIGN, 71 
CHAPTER IV. 

THE LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN, 1559 1603. 

Sackville's Mirror of Mni;ish\i/fs, 1559. — lyly's Euphues. — 
bpenser's Suep/uanies Calender, 1579. — Sidney's Arcadia, 
1580 — Hooker's Eccle^iasiical Polity, 1594. — Bacon's 
Essays, 1597, Spenser born, 1552 ; /''aerie Queen, 1590- 
1595; clieei, 1598. — \V. Warner's, S. Daniel's, M. Dray- 
ton's historical poems, 1595-1598. — Sir J. Davies's and 
Lord Brooke'i^ p/iilosop/i/cal poems, 1599-1620. 

7'Ae Drama. — First Miracle Play, 1110. — In;erliules of J. 
Heywood, 1530. — I'ij-st English Comedy. 154L)?— First 
English Tragedy, 1562.— First English theatre, 1576- — 
Marlowe's I'amburlaine, 1587. — Sliakspcre born, 1564; 
Love's Labours LoU, 1588 ; Merchant of Venice, 1596 ; 
Hamlet, 1602; Cymbeliue, 1610; Henry VIII., 1613; 
died, 1616. — Ben Jonson begins work, 1596; dies, 
1637. — Beaumont and Fletcher in James I.'s reign. 

Webster's first Flay, 1612. — Massinger begins 1620 ; tlies, 
1639.— John Ford's first Play, 1629.— James Shirley, last 
Elizabethan Dramatist, lives to 1666 ; Pheatre closed, 
1642 ; opens again, 1656. 

56. Elizabethan Literature, as a literature, 
may be said to begin with Surrey and Wyatt. But 
as their poems were publislied shortly before I'^lizabeth 
came to the throne, we date the beginning of the 
early period of Elizabethan literature from the year 
of her accession, 1559. That period lasted till 
1579, and was followed by the great literary out- 
burst of the days of Spenser and Shakspere. The 
apparent suddenness of this outburst has been an 
object of wonder. Men have searched for its 
causes, chiefly in the causes which led to the 
revival of learning, and no doubt these bore on 
l>ngland as they did on the whole of Europe. But we 
shall best seek its nearest causes in the work done 



72 ENGLISH LIT ERA TURE. [chap, 

during the early years of Elizabeth, and in doing so 
we shall find that the outburst was not so sudden after 
all. It was preceded by a very various, plentiful, but 
inferior literature, in which new forms of poetry and 
prose-writmg were tried, and new veins of thought 
opened, which were afterwards wrought out fully and 
splendidly. All the germs of the coming age are to 
be found in thesetwenty years. The outburst of a 
plant into flovrer seems sudden, but the whole growth 
of the plant has caused it, and the flowering of 
Elizabethan literature was the slow result of the 
growth of the previous literature and the influences 
that bore upon it. 

57. First Elizabethan Period, 1559-1579. — 
(i.) The literary prose of the beginning of this time is 
represented by the Schokmaster of Ascham, published 
1570. This book, which is on education, is the work 
of the scholar of the new learning of the reign of 
Henry VIII. who has lived on into another period. It 
is not, properly speaking, Elizabethan ; it is like a 
stranger m a new land and among new manners. 

(2.) Poetry is first represented by Sackville, Eord 
Buckhurst. The Mirror of Magistrates^ i559^ for 
which he wrote the Induction and one tale, is a poem 
on the model of Boccaccio's Falls of Princes, already 
imitated by Lydgate. Seven poets, along with 
Sackville, contributed tales to it, but his poem is the 
only one of any value. The Induction paints the 
poet's descent into Avernus, and his meeting with 
Henry Stafl"ord, Duke of Buckingham, whose fate he 
teils with a grave and inventive imagination. Being 
written in the manner and stanza of the elder poets, 
this poem has been called the transition between 
Lydgate and Spenser. But it does not truly belong 
to the old time ; it is as modern as Spenser, and its 
allegorical representations are in the same manner as 
those of Spenser. George Gascoigne, whose satire, 
i}[\<t Steele Glas, 1576, is our first long saMrical poem, is 



IV.] LlTERArURE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN. 73 

the best among a crowd of lesser poets who came 
after Sackville. They wrote legends, pieces on the 
wars and discoveries of the Englishmen of their day, 
epitaphs, epigrams, songs, sonnets, elegies, fables, and 
sets of love poems ; and the best things they did were 
collected in a miscellany called \\\q Faiadise of Dainty 
Devices^ in 1576. This book, with Tottel's, set on 
foot in the later years of Elizabeth a crowd of other 
miscellanies of i:>oeiry which were of great use to the 
poets. Lyrical poetry, and that which we may call 
"occasional jjoeiry," were now fairly started. The 
popular Ballads took a wide range. The registers of 
the Stationers' Company prove that there was scarcely 
any event of the day, nor almost any controversy in 
literature, politics, religion, which was not the subject 
of verse, and of verse into which imagination strove 
to enter. The ballad may be said to have done the 
work of the modern wetkly review. It stimulated 
and informed the intellectual life of England. 

(3.) Frequc7it tra7islations were now made from the 
classical writers. We know the names of more than 
twelve men who did this work, and there must have 
been many more. Already in Henry VIII.'s and 
Edward VI. 's time, ancient authors had been made 
English; and before 1579, Vergil, Ovid, Cicero, 
Demosthenes, and many Greek and Latin plays, 
were translated. Among the rest, Phaer's Vergil, 1562, 
Arthur (folding's Ovid's Mctam. 1565, and George 
Turbervillc's Hist. Epis. of Ovid, 1567, are, and especi- 
ally the first, remarkable. In this way the best models 
were brought before the PLnglish people, and it is in 
the influence of the spirit of Greek and Roman 
literature on literary form and execution that we 
are to find one of the most active causes of the 
greatness of the later Elizabethan literature. Nor 
were the old English poets neglected. Though 
Chaucer, and Lydgate, Langland and the rest, were 
no longer imitated in this time of fresh creation, they 



74 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

were studied, and they added their impulse of life to 
original poets like Spenser. 

(4.) Theological Beform stirred men to another 
kind of literary work. A great number of polemical 
ballads, and pamphlets, and plays issued every year 
from obscure presses and filled the land. Poets like 
George Gascoigne, and still more Barnaby Googe, re- 
present in their work the hatred the young men had 
of the old religious system. It was a spirit which 
did not do much for literature, but it quickened the 
habit of composition, and made it easier. The Bible 
also became common property, and its language 
glided into all theological writing and gave it a literary 
tone ; while the publication of John Foxe's Acts and 
Motiiimefits or Book of Martyrs, 1563, gave to the 
people all over England a book which, by its simple 
style, the ease of its story-telling, and its popular charm 
made the very peasants who heard it read feel what 
is meant by literature. 

(5.) The history of the country and its manners was 
not neglected. A whole class of antiquarians wrote 
steadily, if with some dulness, on this subject. 
Grafton, Stow, Holinshed and others, at least sup- 
plied materials for the study and use of the historical 
dramatists. 

(6.) The love of stories grew quickly. The old 
English tales and ballads were eagerly read and 
collected. Italian tales by various authors were 
translated and sown so broadcast over London by 
William Painter in his collection, The Palace of 
Pleasure, 1566, by George Turbervile, in his Tragical 
Tales in verse, and by others, that it is said they 
were to be bought at every bookstall. The Romances 
of Spain and Italy poured in, and Amadis de Gaul, 
and the companion romances the Arcadia of Sanna- 
zaro, and the Ethiopian History, were sources of 
books like Sidney's Arcadia and, with the classics, sup- 
plied materials for the pageants. A great number of 



IV.] LITERATUkE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN. 75 

subjects for prose and poetry were thus made ready 
for literary men, and prose fiction became possible in 
English literature. 

(7.) The masques, pai:^eants, interludes, and plays 
that were written at this time are scarcely to be 
counted. At every groat eeremonial, whenever the 
queen made a progress or visited one of the great 
lords or a university, at the houses of the nobility, 
and at the court on all important days, some obscure 
versifier, or a young scholar at the Inns of Court, at 
Oxford or at Cambridge, produced a masque or a 
pageant, or wrote or translated a play. The habit of 
play-writing became common ; a kind of school, one 
might almost say a manufacture of plays, arose, which 
partly accounts for the rapid production, the excellence, 
and the multitude of plays that we find after 1576. Re- 
presented all over England, these masques, pageants, 
and dramas were seen by the people, who were thus 
accustomed to take an interest, though of an unedu- 
cated kind, in the larger drama that was to follow. 
The literary men on the other hand ransacked, in 
order to find subjects and scenes for their pageants, 
ancient and mediaeval, magical, and modern litera- 
ture, and many of them in doing so became fine 
scholars. The imagination of England was quickened 
and educated in this way, and as Biblical stories were 
also largely used, the images of oriental life were 
added to the materials of imagination. 

(8.) Another influence bore on literature. It was 
that given by the stories of the voyagers, who, in the 
new commercial activity of the country, penetrated 
inio strange lands, and saw the strange monsters and 
savages which the poets now added to the fairies, 
dwarfs, and giants of the Romances. Before 1579, 
books had been published on the north-west passage. 
Frobishcr had made his voyages and Drake had 
started, to return in 1580 to amaze all P^.ngland with 
the story of his sail round the world and of the riches 



76 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

of the Spanish Main. We may trace everywhere in 
Elizabethan literature the impression made by the 
wonders told by the sailors and captains who ex- 
plored and fought from the North Pole to the 
Southern Seas. 

(9.) Lastly, we have proof that there was a large 
number of persons writing who did not publish their 
works. It was considered at this time, that to write 
for the public injured a man, and unless he were 
driven by poverty he kept his manuscript by him. But 
things w^ere changed when a great genius like Spenser 
took the world by storm ; when Lyly's Euphues en- 
chanted the whole of court society ; when a great 
gentleman like Sir Philip Sidney became a writer. 
Literature was made the fashion, and the disgrace 
being taken from it, the production became enormous. 
Manuscripts written and laid by were at once sent 
forth ; and when the rush began it grew by its own 
force. Those who had previously been kept from 
writing by its unpopularity now took it up eagerly, 
and those who had written before wrote twice as 
much now. The great improvement also in literary 
quality is easily accounted for by this — that men 
strove to equal such work as Sidney's or Spenser's, and 
that a wider and more exacting criticism arose. Nor 
must one omit to say, that owing to this employment 
of life on so vast a number of subjects, and to the 
voyages, and to the new literatures searched into, and 
to the heat of theological strife, a multitude of new 
words streamed into the language, and enriched the 
vocabulary of imagination. Shakspere uses 15,000 
words. 

58. The Later Literature of Elizabeth's 
Reign, 1579-1602, begins with the publication of 
Lyly's Euphues and Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar, 
both in 1579, and with the writing of Sir Philip 
Sidney's Arcadia and his Defence of Poetrie, 1580-81. 
It will be best to leave the poem oif Spenser aside till 



IV.] LITERATURE OF LLlZABETirs REIGN. 77 

we come to write of the poets. The Euphues and the 
Arcadia carried on the story tclHng hterature ; the 
Defence of Poetrie created a new form of Hterature, 
that of criticism. 

The Euphues was the work of John Lvi.y, poet and 
dramatist. It is in two -parts, Euphues the Anatomie 
of IVd, and Euphues ami his England. In six 
years it ran through five editions, so great was its 
popularity. Its prose style is too poetic, but is 
admirable for its smoothness and charm, and its 
very fiiults were of use in softening the rudeness 
of previous prose. The story is long, and is more 
a loose framjwork into which Lyly could fit his 
thoughts on love, friendship, education, and reHgion, 
than a true story. The second part brings Euphues, 
the young A henian, to England through Dover and 
Canterbury to London, and is filled up with two 
stories ; and supplemented by Euphues' Glass for 
Europe. It made its mark because it fell in with 
all the fantastic and changeable life of the time. Its 
far-fetched conceits, its extravagance of gallantry, its 
endless metaphors from the classics and natural 
history, its curious and gorgeous descriptions of dress, 
and its pale imitation of chivalry, were all reflected in 
the life and talk and dress of the court of Elizabeth. 
It becimti the fashion to talk " Euphuism," and, like 
the Utopia of More, Lyly's book has created an 
English word. 

The Arcadia was the work of Sir Philip Sidney, 
and though written in 1580, did not appear till after 
his death. It is more poetic in style than the 
Euphues, and Sidney himself, as he wrote it under the 
crees of Wilton, would have called it a pastoral poem. 
It is less the image of the time than of the man. We 
all know that bright and noble figure, the friend of 
Spenser, the lover of Stella, the last of the old knights, 
the poet, the critic, and the Christian, who, wounded 
to the death, gave up the cup of water to a dying 



yS ENGL ISH LIl 'ERA I URE. [c ii a p. 

soldier. We find his whole spirit in the story of the 
Arcadia, in the first two books and part of the third, 
which alone were written by him. It is a romance 
mixed up with pastoral stories, after the fashion of 
the Spanish romances. The characters are real, but 
the story is confused by endless digressions. The 
sentiment is too fine and delicate for the world. The 
descriptions are picturesque and the sentences made 
as perfect as possible. A quaint or poedc thought or 
an epigram appear in every line. There is no real art 
in it, or in its prose. But it is so full of poetical 
thought that it became a mine into which poets dug 
for subjects. 

59. Criticism began with Sidney's Art of Poetrie, 
Its style shows us that he felt how faulty the prose of 
the Arcadia was. The book made a new step in the 
creation of a dignified English prose. It is still too 
flowery, but in it the fantastic prose of his own Arcadia 
and of the Euphiies dies. As criticism, it is chiefly 
concerned with poetry. It defends, against Stephen 
Gosson's School of Abuse, in which poetry and plays 
were attacked from the Puritan point of view, the 
nobler uses of poetry. Sackville, Surrey, and Spenser 
are praised, and the other poets made little of in its 
pages. It was followed by Webbe's Discourse of 
English Poetrie written " to stirre up some other of 
meet abilitie to bestow travell on the matter." Already 
the other was travailing, and the Arte of English 
Poesie, supposed to be written by George Puttenham, 
was published in 1589. It is the most elaborate book 
on the whole subject in Elizabeth's reign, and it marks 
the strong interest now taken in poetry in the highest 
society that the author says he writes it "to help the 
courtiers and the gentlewomen of the court to write 
good poetry, that the art may become vulgar for all 
Englishmen's use." 

60. Later Prose Literature. — (i.) Theological 
Literature remained for some years after 1580 only 



IV.] LITERATURE OF ELIZABETirS REIGN. 79 

a literature of pamphlets. Puritanism in its attack 
on the stage, and in the Martin Marprelate con- 
troversy upon episcopal government in the Church, 
flooded Kngland with small books. Lord Bacon 
even joined in the latter controversy, anil Nash the 
dramatist made himsek" famous in the war by the 
vigour and fierceness of his wnt. Over this troubled 
sea rcse at last the stately work of Richard 
Hooker. It was in 1594 that the first four books 
cf The Laws of Eaiesiastical Polity^ a defence of 
the Church against the Puritans, were given to the 
world. Before his death he finished the other four. 
The book has remained ever since a standard work. 
It is as much moral and political as theological. Its 
style is grave, clear, and often musical. He adorned 
it with the figures of poetry, but he used them with 
temperance, and the grand and rolling rhetoric with 
which he often concludes an argument is kept for its 
right place. On the whole, it is the first monument of 
splendid literary prose that we possess. 

(2.) We may place alongside of it, as the other 
great prose work of Elizabeth's later time, the de- 
velopment of The Essay in Lord Bacon's Essays, 
1597. Their highest literary merit is their combina 
tion of charm and even of poetic prose with concise- 
ness of expression and fulness of thought. The rest 
of Bacon's work belongs to the following reign. 

(3.) The Literature of Travel was carried on by 
the publication in 1589 of Hakluyt's Navigation, 
Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Natio?i. The 
influence of a compilation of this kind, containing the 
great deeds of the English on the seas, has been felt 
ever since in the literature of fiction and poetry. 

(4.) /// the Tales, which poured out like a flood 
from the dramatists, from such men as Peele, and 
Lodge, and Greene, we find the origin of English 
fiction, and the subjects of many of our plays ; while 
the fantastic desire to revive the practices of chivalry 

6* 



8o ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap, 

which was expressed in the Arcadia, found food in the 
continuous translation of romances, chiefly of the 
Charlemagne cycle, but now more from Spain than 
from France ; and in the reading of the Italian poets, 
Boiardo, Tasso, and Ariosto, who supplied a crowd of 
our books with the machinery of magic, and with 
conventional descriptions of nature and of women's 
beauty. 

6r. Edmund Spenser. — The later Elizabethan 
poetry begins with the Shepheardes Calendar of 
Spenser. Spenser was born in London in 1552, 
and educated at the Merchant Taylors' Grammar 
School which he left for Cambridge in April, 1569. 
There seems to be evidence that in this year the 
Sonnets of Petrarca and the Visions of Bellay, after- 
wards published in 1591, were written by him for a 
miscellany of verse and prose issued by Vander Noodt, 
a refugee Flemish physician. At sixteen or seven- 
teen then he began literary work. At college, Gabriel 
Harvey, a scholar and critic, and the Hobbi7ioll of 
Spenser's works, and Edward Kirke, the E. K. of the 
Shepheardes Calendar, were his friends. In 1576 he 
took his degree of M.A., and before he returned 
to London spent some time in the wilds of Lanca- 
shire, where he fell in love with the "Rosalind" 
of his poetry, a ''fair widowe's daughter of the 
glen." His love was not returned, a rival inter- 
fered, but he clung fast until his marriage to this 
early passion. His disappointment drove him to the 
South, and there, 1579, he was made known through 
Leicester to Leicester's nephew, Philip Sidney. With 
him, and perhaps at Penshurst, \\\^ Shepheardes Calendar 
was finished for the press, and the Faerie Queen con- 
ceived. The publication of the former work made 
Spenser the first poet of the day, and so fresh and 
musical, and so abundant in new life were its twelve 
eclogues, that men felt that at last England had given 
birth to a poet as original as Chaucer. Each month 



IV.] LITER Air RE OE ELIZA BETIPS REIGN. 8i 

of the year bad its own eclogue; some were concerned 
with his shattered love, two of them were fables, three 
of them satires on the lazy clergy ; one was devoted 
to fair I'^iza's praise. 'J'he others belong to rustic 
shepherd life. The English of Chaucer is imitated, 
but the work is full at a new spirit, and as Spenser 
had begun with translating Petrarca, so here, in 
two of the eclogues, he miitates Clement Marot. 
The " Puritanism " of the poem is the same as tliat 
of the Faerie Queen. Save in abliorrence of Rome, 
Spencer does not share in the politics of Puritanism. 
Nor does he separate himself from the world. He is 
as much at home in society and with the arts as any 
literary courtier of the day. He was Puritan in 
his attack on the sloth and pomp of the clergy ; but 
his moral ideal, built up, as it was, out of Christianity 
and Platonism, rose far above the narrower ideal of 
Puritanism. 

In the next year, 1580, he went to Ireland with 
Lord Grey of Wilton as secretary, and after- 
wards saw and learnt that condition of things which 
he described in his Vie^v of the Frese?ii State of Ire- 
land. He was made Clerk of Degrees in the Court 
of Chancery in 1581, and Clerk of the Council of 
Munster in 15S6, audit was then that the manor and 
castle of Kilcolman were granted to him. Here, at 
the foot of the Galtees, and bordered to the north by 
the wild country, the scenery of which fills the Faerie 
Queen, and in whose woods and savage places such 
adventures constantly took place in the service of 
Elizabeth as are recorded in the Faerie Queen, the 
first three books of that great poem were written. 

62. The Faerie Queen. — The plan of the poem, 
so impossible to discover from the poem itself, is 
described in Spenser's prefatory letter to Raleigh. 
The twelve books were to tell the warfare of twelve 
Knights, in whom the twelve virtues of Aristotle were 
represented; and their warfare was against the vices 



82 ENGLISH LITERATURE, [chap. 

and errors, impersonated, which opposed those virtues. 
In Arthur, the Prince — for the machinery of the poem 
is from the old Celtic story — the Magnificence of the 
whole of virtue is represented, and he was at last to 
unite himself in marriage to the Faerie Queen, that 
divine glory of God to which all human act and 
thought aspired. Six books of this plan were finished ; 
the legends of Holiness, Temperance, and Chastity, 
of Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. The two post- 
humous cantos on Mutability seem to have been part 
of the seventh legend, on Constancy. Alongside of 
the spiritual allegory is the historical one, in which 
Elizabeth is Gloriana, and Mary of Scotland is Duessa, 
and Leicester, and at times Sidney, is Prince Arthur, 
and Arthegall is Lord Grey, and Raleigh is Timias, and 
Philip IL the Soldan, or Grantorto. In the midst, other 
allegories slip in, referring to events of the day, and 
Elizabeth becomes Belphoebe and Britomart, and Mary 
is Radegund, and Sidney is Calidore, and Alen^on is 
Braggadochio. The dreadful "justice" done in Ireland, 
by the ^' iron man," and the wars in Belgium, and 
Norfolk's conspiracy, and the Armada, and the trial 
of Mary are also shadowed forth. 

The allegory is clear in the first two books. After- 
wards it is troubled with digressions, sub-allegories, 
genealogies, with anything that Spenser's fancy led 
him to introduce. Stories are dropt and never taken 
up again, and the whole tale is so tangled that it loses 
the interest of narrative. But it retains the interest 
of exquisite allegory. It is the poem of the noble 
powers of the human soul struggling towards union 
with God, and warring against all the forms of evil ; 
and these powers become real personages, whose lives 
and battles Spenser tells in verse so musical and so 
gliding, so delicately wrought, so rich in imaginative 
ornament, and so inspired with the finer Hfe of beauty, 
that he has been called the poets' Poet. Descriptions 
like those of the House cf Pride and the Mask of 



IV.] Ln^ERATURE OF EL/ZABET/rS RE/CX. 83 

Cupid, and of the Months, are so vivid in form and 
colour, that tliey have always made subjects for artists; 
while the allegorical personages are, to the very last 
detail, wrought out by an imagination which describes 
not only the general character, but the si)ecial 
characteristics of the Virtues or the Vices, of the 
Months of the year, or of the Rivers of Kngland. In 
its ideal whole, the jjoem represents the new love 
of chivalry, of classical learning ; the delight in 
mystic theories of love and religion, in allegorical 
schemes, in splendid spectacles and pageants, in wild 
adventure ; the love of England, the hatred of Spain, 
the strange worship of the Queen, even Spenser's own 
new love. It takes up and uses the popular legends 
of fairies, dwarfs, and giants, all the machinery of the 
Italian ei)ics, and mingles them up with the wild 
scenery of Ireland and the savages and wonders 
of the New World. Almost the whole spirit of the 
Renaissance under Elizabeth, except its coarser and 
baser elements, is in its pages, Of anything impure, 
or ugly, or violent, there is no trace. And Spenser 
adds to all his ow^n sacred love of love, his own pre- 
eminent sense of the loveliness of loveliness, walking 
through the whole of this woven world of faerie — 



•&' 



** Willi the moon's beauty and ihe moon's >oft pace." 

The first three books were finished in Ireland, and 
Raleigh listened to them in 1589 at Kilcolman Castle, 
among the alder shades of the river MuUa that fed the 
lake below the castle. Delighted with the poem, he 
brought Spenser to England, and the Queen, the court, 
and the whole of England soon shared in Raleigh's 
delight. It was the first great ideal poem that England 
had produced, and it is the source of all our modern 
poetry. It has never ceased to make j)oets, and it 
will live, as lie said in his dedication to the Queen, 
"with the etcrnitie of her fame." 
8 



84 ENGLISH LITER A TURE, [chap. 

63. Spenser's Minor Poems. — The next year, 
1591, Spenser being still in England, collected his 
smaller poems and published them. Among them 
Mother Hubbard's Tale is a remarkable satire, some- 
what in the manner of Chaucer, on society, on the 
evils of a beggar soldiery, of the Church, of the court, 
and of misgovernment. The Ruitis of Time^ and still 
more the Tears of the Muses, support the statement 
that literature was looked on coldly previous to 1580. 
Sidney had died in 1586, and three of these poems 
bemoan his death. The others are of slight importance, 
and the whole collection was entitled Complaints. Re- 
turning to Ireland, he gave an account of his visit and 
of the court of Elizabeth in Colin Cloiit's co7ne Home 
again, 1591, and at last, after more than a year's pur- 
suit, won his second love for his wife, and found with 
her perfect happiness. A long series of Sofz?iets 
records the progress of his wooing, and the Epitha- 
laniiiim, his marriage hymn, is the most glorious love- 
song in the English tongue. At the close of 1595 he 
brought to England in a second visit the last three 
books of the Faerie Queen. The next year he spent 
in London, and published these books along with the 
Frotlialamion on the marriage of Lord Worcester's 
daughters, the DapJmdida , and the Hymns on Love 
and Beau'y and o?i Heavenly Love and Beauty. The 
two first hymns were written in his youth ; the two 
others, now written, enshrine that love philosophy 
of Petrarca which makes earthly love find its end 
in the love of God. The close of his life was 
sorrowful. In 1598, Tyrone's rebellion drove him 
out of Ireland. Kilcolman was sacked and burnt, one 
of his children perished in the flames, and Spenser 
and his family fled for their lives to England. Broken- 
hearted, poor, but not forgotten, the poet died in a 
London tavern. All his fellows went with his body 
to the grave, where, close by Chaucer, he lies in West- 
minster Abbey. London, " his most kindly nurse," 



IV.] LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN. 85 

takes care also of his dust, and I'^ngland keeps him 
in her love. 

64. Later Elizabethan Poetry : Transla- 
tions. — There are three translators that take literary 
rank among the crowd that carried on the work 
of the earlier time. Two mark the influence of 
Italy, one the more ]:)0werful influence of the Greek 
spirit. Sir John Harington in 1591 translated 
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Fairfax in 1600 trans- 
lated Tasso's Jerusalem, and his book is " one of 
the glories of Elizabeth's reign.'' But the nob'cst 
translation is that of Homer's whole work by Georgk 
Chapman, the dramatist, the first part of which ap- 
peared in 1598. The vivid life and energy of the 
time, its creative power and its force, are expressed in 
this poem, which is " more an Elizabethan tale written 
about Achilles and Ulysses " than a translation. The 
rushing gallop of the long fourteen-syllable stanza in 
which it is written has the fire and swiftness of Homer, 
but it has not his directness or dignity. Its ** incon- 
querable quaintness " and diffuseness are as unlike the 
pure form and light and measure of Greek work as pos- 
sible. But it is a disrinct poem of such power that it 
will excite and delight all lovers of poetry, as it excited 
and delighted Keats. John Florio's Translation of the 
Essays of Mo?itaigjie, 1603, is also, though in prose, 
to be mentioned here, because Shakspere used the 
book, and because we must trace Montaigne's in- 
fluence on English literature even before his retrans- 
lation by Charles Cotton. 

The Four Phases of Poetry after 15S0.— 
Spenser reflected in his poems the romantic spirit 
of the English Renaissance. The other poetry of 
Elizabeth's reign reflected the whole of English 
Life. The best way to arrange it — omitting as yet 
the Drama— is in an order parallel to the growth of 
the national life, and the proof that it is the best 
way is, that 0:1 the whole such an order is a true 



85 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

chronological order. First .then, if we compare 
England after 1580, as writers have often done, to an 
ardent youth, we shall find in the poetry of the first 
years that followed that date all the elements of youth. 
It is a poetry of love, and romance, and imagination. 
Secondly^ and later on, when Englishmen grew older 
in feeling, their enthusiasm, which had flitted here 
and there in action and literature over all kinds of 
subjects, settled down into a steady enthusiasm for 
England itself. The country entered on its early man- 
hood, and parallel With this there is the great out- 
burst of historical plays, and a set of poets whom I 
will call the Patriotic Poets. Thirdly^ and later still, 
the fire and strength of the people, becoming inward, 
resulted in a graver and more thoughtful national life, 
and parallel with this are the tragedies of Shakspere 
and the poets who have been called philosophical. 
These three classes of Poets overlapped one another, 
and grew up gradually, but on the whole their succes- 
sion is the image of a real succession of national 
thought and emotion. 

K fourth and separate phase does not represent, as 
these do, a new national life, a new religion, and new 
politics, but the despairing struggle of the old faith 
against the new. There were numbers of men, such 
as Wordsworth has finely sketched in old Norton in 
the Doe of RyhtoJie^ who vainly and sorrowfully strove 
against all the new national elements. Robert South- 
well, of Norfolk, a Jesuit priest, was the poet of 
Roman Catholic England. Imprisoned for three 
years, racked ten times, and finally executed, he wrote, 
while confessor to Lady Arundel, a number of poems 
published at various intervals and finally collected 
under the title, St. Peter's Complaint, Mary Magdaleris 
Tears, with other works of the Author, R.S. The 
McBoiiicE, and a short prose work Marie Magdaleris 
Funerall Tears, became also very popular. It marks not 
only the large Roman Catholic element in the country, 



IV.] LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGI^. 87 

but also the strange contrasts of the time that eleven 
editions of books with these tides were published be- 
tween 1595 and 1609, at a time when the Vams and 
Adonis of Shakspere led the way for a multitude of 
poems that sung of love and deligln and England s 
glory. 

65. The Love Poetry.— I have called it by this 
name because all its best work (to be found in the 
first book of Mr. Palgrave's " Golden Treasury ") is 
almost limited to that subject — the subject of youth. 
It is chiefly composed in the form of songs and sonnets, 
and much of it was published in miscellanies in and 
after 1600, The most famous of these, in which 
men like Nicholas Breton, Henry Constable, Richard 
Barnefield and others wrote, are England's Helicon, 
and Davison's Rhapsody and the Passionate Pilgrim. 
The best of the songs are *' old and plain,' and 
dallying with the innocence of love," childlike in 
their natural sweetness and freshness, but full also 
of a southern ardour of passion when they treat of 
love. The greater part however have the intemperance 
as well as the phantasy of a youthful poetry. Shak- 
spere's excel the others in their firm reality, their ex- 
quisite ease, and when in the plays, gain a new beauty 
from their fitness to their dramatic place. Others 
possess a quaint pastoralism like shepherd life in por- 
celain, such as Marlowe's well-known song, " Come 
live with me, and be my love ; " others a splendour of 
love and beauty as in Lodge's Song of Rosaline, and 
Spenser's on his marriage. The sonnets were written 
chiefly in series, and I have already said that such 
writers are called amourists. Such were Shakspere's 
and the A?noretti of Spenser, and those to Diana by 
Constable. They were sometimes mixed with Can- 
zones and Ballatas after the Italian manner, and the 
best of them were a series by Sir Philip Sidney. 
A number of other sonnets and of longer love poems 
were written by the dramatists before Shakspere, by 



88 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Peele and Greene and Marlowe and Lodge, far the 
finest being the Hero and Leander^ which Marlowe 
left as a fragment to be completed by Chapman. 
Mingled up with these were small religious poems, the 
reflection of the Puritan and the more religious Church 
element in English society. They were collected 
under such titles as the handful of Honeysuckles^ the 
Poor Widow s Mite, Psalms and Sonnets, and there are 
some good things among them written by William 
Hunnis. 

In one Scotch poet, William Drummond of Haw- 
thornden, the friend of Ben Jonson, the love poet and 
the religious poet were united. I menUon him here, 
though his work properly belongs to the reign of 
James I., because his poetry really goes back in spirit 
and feeling to this time. He cannot be counted 
among the true Scottish poets. Drummond is 
Elizabethan and English, and he is worthy to be 
named among the lyrical poets below Spenser and 
Shakspere. His love sonnets have some of the grace 
of Sidney's, and less qua,intness ; his songs have often 
the grave simplicity of Wyat, and his religious poems, 
especially one solemn sonnet on John the Baptist, 
have a distant resemblance to the grandeur of Milton. 

66. The Patriotic Poets. — Among all this poetry 
of Romance, Chivalry, Religion, and Love, rose a 
poetry which devoted itself to the glory of England. 
It was chiefly historical, and as it may be said to have 
had its germ in the Mirror of Magistrates, so it had 
its perfect flower in the historical drama of Shak- 
spere. Men had now begun to have a great pride 
in England. She had stepped into the foremost rank, 
had outwitted France, subdued internal foes, beaten 
and humbled Spain on every sea. Hence the history 
of the land became precious, and the very rivers and 
hills and plains honourable, and to be sung and praised 
in verse. This poetic impulse is best represented in 
the works of three men — William Warner, Samuel 



IV.] LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S RE/GN. 89 

Daniel, and Michael Drayton. Born within a itw 
years of each other, about 1560, they all lived beyond 
the century, and the national poetry they set on foot 
lasted when the romantic poetry died. 

William Warner's great book was Alhiotis England, 
1586, a history of-l^.ngland in verse from the Deluge 
to Queen Elizabeth. It is clever, humorous, crowded 
with stories, and runs to 10,000 lines. Its popularity 
was great, ami the English in which it was written 
deserved it. Such stories as Argeniile and Ciiran, and 
the Patient Countess, prove him to have had a true 
and pathetic vein of poetry. His English is not how- 
ever better than that of '' well-languaged Daniel," who, 
among tragedies and pastoral comedies, some noble 
sonnets and poems of pure fancy, wrote in verse a jiro 
saic History of the Civil Wars, 1595. Spenser saw in 
him a new ** shepherd " of poetry who did far surpass 
the others, and Coleridge says that the style of his 
Hymen's Triumph may be declared ** imperishable 
English." Of the three the greatest poet was Drayton. 
Two historical poems are his work — the Civil Wars 
of Edward If. and the Barons, and Englafid's Heroical 
Epistles, 1598. Not content with these, he set him- 
self to glorify the whole of his land in the Polyolbion, 
thirty books, and nearly 100,000 lines. It is a de- 
scription in Alexandrines of the "tracts, mountains, 
forests, and other parts of this renowned isle of 
Britain, with intermixture of the most remarkable 
stories, antiquities, wonders, pleasures, and commo- 
dities of the same, digested into a poem." It was 
not a success, though it deserved success. Its great 
length was against it, but the real reason was that this 
kind of poetry had had its day. It appeared in 16 13, 
in James I.'s reign. 

67. Philosophical Poets. — Before that time a 
change had come. As the patriotic poets came 
after the romantic, so the romantic were followed 
by the philosophical poets. The land was settled ; 



90 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

enterprise ceased to be the first thing ; men sat down 
to think, and in poetry questions of reb'gious and 
political philosophy were treated with " sententious 
reasoning, grave, subtle, and condensed." Shakspere, 
in his passage from comedy to tragedy, in 1601, illus- 
trates this change. The two poets who represent it 
are Sir Jno. Davies and Fulke Greville, Lord 
Brooke. In Davies himself we find an instance of it. 
His earlier poem of the Oi'chestra^ 1596, in which the 
whole world is explained as a dance, is as exultant 
as Spenser. His later poem, 1599, is compact and 
vigorous reasoning, for the most part without fancy. 
Its very title, Nosce te ipsiim — Y^novj Thyself— and its 
divisions, i. "On humane learning," 2. "The im- 
mortality of the soul " — mark the alteration. Two 
little poems, one of Bacon's, on the Life of Man, as a 
bubble, and one of Sir Henry Wotton's, on the 
Character of a Happy Life, are instances of the same 
change. It is still more marked in Lord Brooke's 
long, obscure poems 0?i LLiunan Learning, on Wars, 
on Mona7xhy, a fid on Religion. They are political and 
historical treatises, not poems, and all in them, says 
Lamb, "is made frozen and rigid by intellect." Apart 
from poetry, "they are worth notice as an indication 
of that thinking spirit on political science which was 
to produce the riper speculations of Hobbes, Har- 
rington, and Locke." We turn now to the Drama, 
whicn includes all these different forms of poetry. 



THE DRAMA. 

6^. Early Dramatic Representation in Eng- 
land. — The drama, asin-Greece, so in England, began 
in religion. In early times none but the clergy could 
read the stories of their religion, and it was not the 
custom to deliver sermons to the people. It was neces- 
sary to instruct uneducated men in the history of the 



IV.] THE ENGLISH DRAMA. 91 

Bible, the Christian faith, the lives of the S.iints and 
Martyrs. Hence the Church set on foot miracle j)lavs 
and mysteries. We find these first in England about 
mo, when Geoffrey, afterwarils Abbot of St. Alban's, 
prepared his miracle play of St. Catherine for acting. 
Such pla)s becaiiiC more frequent Irom the time of 
Henry II., and they were so common in Chaucer's 
days that they were the resort of idle gossips in Lent. 
The wife of Lath went to " plays of miracles, and 
marriages." They were acted not only by the clergy, 
but by the laity. About the year 126S the town guilds 
began to take them into their own hands, and acted 
complete sets of plays, setting forth the whole of 
Scripture history from the Creation to the Day of 
Judgment. Kach guild took one play in the set. 
'J'hcy lasted sometimes three days, sometimes eight, 
and were represented on a great movablj stage on 
wheels in the open spaces of the towns. Ot these 
sets we have three remaining, theTowneley, Coventry, 
and Chester plays: 1300 — 1600. The first set has 
32, the second 42, and the third 25 plays. 

69. The Miracle Play was a representation of 
some portion of Scripture history, or of the life of 
some Saint of the Church. The Mystery was a 
representation of any portion of the New Testament 
history concerned with a mysterious subject, such as 
the Incarnation, the Atonement or the Resurrection. 
It has been attempted to distinguish these more par- 
ticularly, but they are mingled together in f^ngland 
into one. From the towns they went to the court 
and the houses of nobles. The Kings kept players 
of them, and we know that exhibiting Scripture plays 
at great festivals was part of the domestic regulations 
of the great houses, and that it was the Chaplain's 
business to write them. Their " Dumb Show " and 
their " Chorus " leave their trace in the regular drama. 
We cannot say that the modern drama arose after 
them, for it came in before they died out in England. 



92 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

They were still acted in Chester in 1577, and in 
Coventry in 1580. 

70. The Morality was the next step to these, and 
in it we come to a representation which is closely 
connected with the drama. It was a play in which 
the characters were the Vices and Virtues, with the 
addition afterwards of allegorical personages, such as 
Riches, Good Deeds, Confession, Death, and any 
human condition or quality needed for the play. 
These characters were brought together in a rough 
story, at the end of which Virtue triumphed, or some 
moral principle was established. The later dramatic/t?<?/ 
grew up in the Moralities out of a personage called 
" The Vice," and the humorous element was intro- 
duced by the retaining of " The Devil " from the 
Miracle play and by making the Vice torment him. 
They were contiunally represented, but finally died out 
about the end of Elizabeth's reign. 

71. The Transition between these and the 
regular Drama may possibly be traced in this way. 
The Virtues and Vices were dull because they stirred 
no human sympathy. Historical characters were 
therefore then introduced, who were celebrated for a 
virtue or a vice; Brutus represented patriotism, 
Aristides represented justice ; or, as in Bale's Kynge 
Johaii, historical and allegorical personages were mixed 
together. But it seems best to say that the regular 
drama arose independently, as soon as the English 
had classical and Italian models to work from. Still, 
there was a transition of some kind, and it was hastened 
by the impulse of the Reformation. The religious 
struggle came so home to men's hearts that they were 
not satisfied v/ith subjects drawn from the past, and 
the Morality was used to support the Catholic or the 
Protestant side. Real men and women were shown 
under the thin cloaks of its allegorical characters ; the 
vices and the follies of the time were displayed. It 
started our satiric comedy. The stage was becoming 



IV.] THE ENGLISH DRAMA. 93 

a living power when this began. The excitement of the 
audience was now very different from that felt in listen- 
ing to Virtues and Vices, and a demand arose for a 
comedy and tragedy which should picture human life 
in all its forms. The Interludes of John Hf.vwood, 
most of which were written for court representation 
in Henry VIII.'s time— 1530, 1540— represent this 
further transition. They differed from the Morality . 
in that most of the characters were drawn from real 
life, but they retained *' the Vice " as a personage. 
The Interlude — a short, humorous piece, to be acted 
in the midst of the Morality for the amusemcRt of 
the people— had been frequently used, but Hey wood 
isolated it from the Morality and made of it a kind of 
farce. Out of it we may say grew English comedy. 

72. The First Stage of the regular Drama 
begins with the first English comedy, Ralph Roister 
Doister^ written by Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, 
known to have been acted before 155 1, but not pub- 
lished till 1566. It is our earliest picture of London 
manners; the characters are well drawn ; it is divided 
into regular acts and scenes, and is made in rime. 
The first English tragedy is Goi-boduc, or Ferrex and 
Porrex^ written by Sackville and Norton, and repre- 
sented in 1562. The story was taken from British 
legend, and the characters are gravely sustained. But 
the piece was heavy and too solemn for the audience, 
and Richard Edwards, by mixing tragic and comic 
elements together in his play, Damon and Pythias^ 
acted about 1564, succeeded better. These two gave 
the impulse to a number of dramas from classical and 
modern story, which were acted at the Universities, 
Inns of Court, and the court up to 1580, when the 
drama, having gone through its boyhood, entered on 
a vigorous manhood. More than fifty-two dramas, so 
quick was their production, are known to have been 
acted up to this time. Some were translated from the 
Greek, as ih^Jocasta from Euripides, and others from 



94 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

the Italian, as the Supposes from Ariosto, both by the 
same author, George Gascoigne, already mentioned 
as a satirist. These were acted in 1566. Italian 
stories were soon taken as subjects, one example of 
which is Arthur Brooke's Romeo a?id Juliet. The 
Chronicle Histories of England afforded other tragic 
subjects, as T. Hughes' Misfortunes of Arthur^ and the 
Famous Victories of Henry V. ; and Comedy, falling 
in with classical and Italian plays, such as the 
Supposes, rapidly developed itself. 

73. The Theatre. — There was as yet no theatre. 
A patent was given in 1574 to the Earl of Leicester's 
servants to act plays in any town in P^ngland, and 
they built in 1576 the Blackfriars Theatre. In the 
same year two others were set up in the fields about 
Shoreditch— " The Theatre" and "The Curtain." 
The Globe Theatre, built for Shakspere and his 
fellows in 1599, may stand as a type of the rest. 
In the form of a hexagon outside, it was circular 
within, and open to the weather, except above the 
stage. The play began at three o'clock ; the nobles 
and ladies sat in boxes or in stools on the stage, the 
people stood in the pit or yard. The stage itself, 
strewn with rushes, Avas a naked room, with a blanket 
for a curtain. Wooden imitations of animals, towers, 
woods, &c., were all the scenery used, and a board, 
stating the place of action, was hung out from the top 
when the scene changed. Boys acted the female 
parts. It was only after the Restoration that moveable 
scenery and actresses were introduced. No " pencil's 
aid " supplied the landscape of Shakspere's plays. The 
forest of Arden, the castle of Duncan, were " seen 
only by the intellectual eye." 

74. The Second Stage of the Drama ranges 
from 1580 to 1596. It includes the work of Lyly 
(author of the £uphues), the plays of Peele, Greene, 
Lodge, Marlowe, Kyd, Munday, Chettle, Nash, and 
the earliest works of Shakspere. During this time 



IV.] THE ENGLISH DRAMA. 95 

we know that more than 100 ditTercnt phiys were per- 
formed by four out of the eleven companies ; so swift 
and plentiful was their production. They were written 
in prose, and in rime, and in blank verse mixed with 
prose and rime. Prose and rime prevailed before 
1587, when Marlowe in his play of Tamburlaine made 
blank verse the fashion. John Lyly illustrates the 
three methods, for he wrote seven i)lays in prose, one 
in rime, and one (after Tamburlaine) in blank verse. 
We may say that, in *' adopting Gascoigne's innovation 
of writing plays in prose, he did his best service to 
dramatic literature." Some beautiful little songs scat- 
tered through them are the forerunners of the songs 
with which Shakspere illumined his dramas, and the 
witty *' quips and cranks," repartees and similes of 
their fantastic prose^ dialogue were the school of 
Shakspere's prose dialogue. Peele, Greene, and 
Marlowe are the three important names of the 
period. They are the first in whose hands the play 
of human passion and action is expressed with any 
true dramatic effect. Peele and Greene make their 
characters act on, and draw out, one another in the 
several scenes, but they have no power of making a 
plot, or of working out their plays, scene by scene, to 
a natural conclusion. They are, in one word, without 
art, and their characters, even when they talk in good 
poetry, are neither natural nor simple. Yet, he would 
be unwise, and would lose much pleasure, who should 
not read their works. 

Christopher Marlowe, on the other hand, rose 
by degrees and easily into mastery of his art. The 
difference between the unequal and violent action 
and thought of his Doctor Faust us, and the (juiet 
and orderly progression to its end of the i)lay of 
Edward II., is all the more remarkable when we 
know that he died at thirty. Though less than 
Shakspere, he was worthy to precede him. As he 
may be said to have invented and made the verse of 

7* 9 



96 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

the drama, so he created the English tragic drama. 
His plays are wrought with skill to their end, his 
characters are sharply and strongly outlined. Each 
play illustrates one ruling passion, in its growth, its 
power, and its extremes. Tamburlaifie } taints the 
desire of universal empire ; the Je2V of Malta., the 
passions of greed and hatred ; Doctor Faustus, the 
struggle and failure of man to possess all knowledge 
and all pleasure without toil and without law ; 
Edward J I., the miseiy of weakness and the agony 
of a king's ruin. Marlowe's verse is "mighty," his 
]3oetry strong and weak aHke with passionate feeling, 
and overwrought into an intemperate magnificence of 
words and images. It reflects his life and the lives of 
those with whom he wrote. Marlowe lived and died an 
irreligious, imaginative, tender-hearted, licentious poet. 
Peele and Greene lived an even more riotous life and 
died as miserably, and they are examples of a crowd 
of other dramatists who passed their lives between the 
theatre, the wine-shop, and the prison. Their drama, 
in which we see the better side of the men, had all the 
marks of a wild youth. It was daring, full of strong 
but unequal life, romantic, sometimes savage, often 
tender, ahvays exaggerated in its treatment and ex- 
pression of the human passions. If it had no modera- 
tion, it had no tame dulness. If it was coarse, it was 
powerful, and it was above all national. It was a 
time full of strange contrasts, a time of fiery action 
and of sentimental contemplation; a time of fancy 
and chivalry, indelicacy and buffoonery ; of great 
national adventure and private brawls, of literary 
quiet and polemic thought ; of faith and infidelity — 
and the whole of it is painted with truth, but with too 
glaring colours, in the drama of these men. 

75. William Shakspere, the greatest dramatist 
of the world, now took up the work of Marlowe, and 
in twenty-eight years made the drama represent the 
whole of human life. He was baptised April 26, 1564, 



IV.] THE ENGLISH DRAMA. 97 

and was the son of a comfortable burgess of Stratford- 
on-Avon. While he was still young his father fell 
into poverty, and an interrupted education left him 
an inferior scholar. " He had small Latin and less 
Greek ;" but he had vast store of English.' 

By dint then of genius and by living in a society m 
which every kind of information was attainable, he 
became an accomplished man. The story told of his 
deer-stealing in Charlecote woods is without proof, but 
it is likely that his youth was wild and passionate. Ai 
nineteen he married Anne Hathaway, more than seven 
years older than himself, and was probably unhappy 
with her. For this reason, or from poverty, or from the 
driving of the genius that led him to the stage, he left 
Stratford about 15S6-7, and came to London at the 
age of- twenty-two years, and falling in with Marlowe, 
Greene, and the rest, became an actor and play- 
wright, and may have lived their unrestrained and 
riotous life for some years. 

76. His First Period. — It is probable that before 
leaving Stratford he had sketched a part at least of 
his Vejiiis and Adonis. It is full of the country sights 
and sounds, of the ways of birds and animals, such 
as he saw when wandering in Charlecote woods. Its 
rich and overladen poetry and its warm colouring 
made him, when it was published, 1591-3, at once 
the favourite of men like Lord Southampton and 
lifted him into fame. But before that date he had 
done work for the stage by touching up old plays, and 
writing new ones. We seem to trace his "prentice 
hand " in many dramas of the time, but the first he is 
usually thought to have retouched is Titus Andronicus, 
and some time after the First Fart of Henry VI. 
Loves Labour's Lost, the first of his original plays, in 

*^ lie iT^es 1 5, OCX) wotd=^, and he wrote pure EnTlish. Out of 
every five verbs, adverb-, and nouns (ci:. in the last aci of 
Othelh) four are Teufoiiic; and he is more Teutonic in co.iiedy 
than in tra^^edy. 



98 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

which he quizzed and excelled the Euphuists in wit, was 
followed by the involved and rapid farce of the Comedy 
of Errors. Out of these frolics of intellect and action 
he passed into pure poetry in the Midsummer- Nighf s 
Dream, and mingled into fantastic beauty the classic 
legend, the medieval fairyland, and the clownish life 
of the English mechanic. Italian story then laid its 
charm upon him, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona 
preceded the southern glow of passion in Romeo and 
Juliet^ in which he first reached tragic power. They 
complete, with Love's Labour's Won, afterwards recast 
as A/fs Weil that Ends Well, the love plays of his 
early period. We may perhaps add to them the 
second act of an older play, Edivard HI. We should 
certainly read along with them, as belonging to the 
same period, his Rapeof Lucrece, a poem finally printed 
in 1594, one year later than the Ve?ins and Adonis, 
which was probably finished, if not wholly written, at 
this passionate time. 

The same poetic succession we have traced in the 
poets is now found in Shakspere. The patriotic feel- 
ing of England, also represented in Marlowe and 
Peele, now seized on him, and he turned from love 
to begin his great series of historical plays with 
Richard IL, 1593 — 4. Richard II L followed quickly. 
To introduce it and to complete the subject, he re- 
cast the Second and Third Farts of Henry VI. (written 
by some unknown authors) and ended his first period 
by Kmg John ; five plays in a little more than two 
years. 

77. His Second Period, 1596 — 1601. — In the 
Merchant of Venice Shakspere reached entire mastery 
over his art. A mingled woof of tragic and comic 
threads is brought to its highest point of colour when 
Portia and Shylock meet in court. Pure comedy fol- 
lowed in his retouch of the old Taming of the Shrew^ 
and all the wit of the world mixed with noble history 
met next in the three comedies of Falsiaff, the first 



IV.] THE ENGLISH DRAMA. 99 

and second Henry IT. and tlie Afcrry Wires of IVi/ui- 
sor. The historical j)hiys were then closed with 
Henry V. ; a splendid dramatic song to the glory of 
England. Tlie Globe Tlieatre, in whicli he was one of 
the proprietors, was built in 1599. In the comedies 
he wrote for it, Shakspere turned to write of love 
again, not to touch its deeper passion as before, but 
to play with it in all its lighter phases. The flashing 
dialogue of Much Ado Aboi4t NotJiing was followed 
by the far-off forest world of As You Like It, where 
"the time fleets carelessly," and Rosalind's character 
is the play. Amid all its gracious lightness steals in 
a new element, and the melancholy of Jaques is the 
first touch we have of the older Shakspere who had 
"gained his experience, and whose experience had 
made him sad." As yet it was but a touch ; Twelfth 
Night shows no trace of it, though the play that fol- 
lowed, Airs Well that Ends Well, again strikes a 
sadder note. We find this sadness fully grown in the 
later Sonnrts, which are said to have been finished 
about 1602. We know that some of the Sonnets ex- 
isted in 1598, but they were all printed together for 
the first time in 1609. 

Shakspere's life changed now, and his mind 
changed with it. He had grown wealthy during this 
period, f:imous, and loved by society. He was the 
friend of the Pearls of Southampton and Essex, and of 
William Herbert, Lord Pembroke. The Queen pa- 
tronised him ; all the best literary society was his own. 
He had rescued his father from poverty, bought the 
best house in Stratford and much land, and was a 
man of wealth and comfort. Suddenly all his life 
seems to have grown dark. His best friends fell into 
ruin, Essex perished on the scaffold, Southampton 
went to the Tower, Pembroke was banished from the 
court ; he may himself, as some have thought, have 
been concerned in the rising of Essex. Added to this, 
we may conjecture, from th^ imaginative pageantry 



loo ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

of the sonnets, that he had unwisely loved, and been 
betrayed in his love by a dear friend. Disgust of his 
profession as an actor and public and private ill 
weighed heavily on him, and in darkness of spirit, 
though still clinging to the business of the theatre, he 
passed from comedy to write of the sterner side of the 
world, to tell the tragedy of mankind. 

78. — His Third Period, 1601-1608, begins with 
the last days of Queen Elizabeth. It opens, 1601, with 
Julius Ccesar, and we may have, scattered through the 
telling of the great Roman's fate, the expression of 
Shakspere's sorrow for the ruin of Essex. Hamlet fol- 
lowed, for the poet felt, like the Prince of Denmark, 
that " the time was out of joint." Hamlet, the dreamer, 
may well represent Shakspere as he stood aside from 
the crash that overwhelmed his friends, and thought 
on the changing world. The tragi-comedy of Measure 
for Measure was next written, and is tragic in thought 
throughout. Othello, Macbeth, Lear, Troilus and 
Cressida (finished from an incomplete work of his 
youth), Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Timoji 
(only in part his own), were all written in these five 
years. The darker sins of men, the unpitying fate 
which slowly gathers round and falls on men, the 
avenging wrath of conscience, the cruelty and punish- 
ment of weakness, the treachery, lust, jealousy, in- 
gratitude, madness of men, the follies of the great 
and the fickleness of the mob, are all, with a thousand 
other varying moods and passions, painted, and felt 
as his own while he painted them, during this stern 
time. 

79. His Fourth Period, 1608-1613.— As Shak- 
spere wrote of these things he passed out of them, 
and his last days are full of the gende and loving 
calm of one who has known sin and sorrow and fate, 
but has risen above them into peaceful victory. Like 
his great contemporary Bacon, he left the world and 
his own evil time behind him, and with the same 



IV.] THE E.\GLISII DRAMA. loi 

quiet dignity sought the innocence and stiHncss of 
country life. The country breathes through all the 
dramas of this time. The flowers Perdiia gathers in 
Winters Tale, the frolic of the sheep -shearing, he 
may have seen in the Stratford meadows ; the song of 
Fidele iii Cymbeline is written by one who already 
feared no more the frown of the great, nor slander, 
nor censure rash, and was looking forward to the time 
when men should say of him — 

" Quiet consummation have ; 
And renowned be thy grave I " 

Shakspere probably left London in 1609, and lived 
in the house he had bought at Stratford-on-Avon. 
He was reconciled, it is said, to his wife, and the plays 
now written dwell on domestic peace and forgiveness. 
The story of Marina, which he left unfinished, and 
which two later writers expanded into the play of 
Pericles, is the first of his closing series of dramas. 
The Tempest, Cymbeline, Winters Tale, bring his 
history up to 16 12, and in the next year he closed his 
I)oeUc life by writing, with Fletcher, Henry VIII. 
The Two Noble Kinsmen of Fletcher, a great part of 
which is now, on doubtful grounds I think, attributed 
to Shakspere, and in which the poet sought the 
inspiration of Chaucer, would belong to this period. 
For three years he kept silence, and then, on the 
23rd of April, 1 61 6, it is supposed on his fifty-second 
birthday, he died. 

80. His Work. — We can only guess with regard 
to Shakspere's life ; we can only guess with regard to 
his character. It has been tried to find out what he 
was from his sonnets, and from his plays, but every 
attempt seems to be a failure. We cannot lay our 
hand on anything and say for certain that it was 
spoken by Shakspere out of his own character. The 
most personal thing in all his writings is one that 
has been scarcely noticed. It is the Epilogue to the 



I02 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Tempest^ and if it be, as is most probable, one of the 
last things he ever wrote, then its cry for forgiveness, its 
tale of inward sorrow only to be relieved by prayer, 
give us some dim insight into how the silence of 
those three years was passed ; while its declaration of 
his aim in writing, ''which was to please " — the true 
definition of the artist's aim, if the pleasure he desire 
to give be noble — should make us very cautious 
in our efforts to define his character from his w^orks. 
Shakspere made men and women whose dramatic 
action on each other, and towards a catastrophe, was 
intended to please the public, not to reveal himself. 
Frequently failing in fineness of w^orkmanship, having, 
but far less than the other dramatists, the faults of 
the art of his time, he was yet in all other points — in 
creative power, in impassioned conception and exe- 
cution, in plenteousness, in the continuance of his 
romantic feeling— the greatest artist the modern world 
has known. No commentary on his writings, no 
guesses about his life or character, are worth much 
which do not rest on this canon as their foundation 
— What he did, thought, learned, and felt, he did, 
thought, learned, and felt as an artist. Like the 
rest of the great artists, he reflected the noble 
things of his time, but refused to reflect the base. 
Fully influenced, as we see in Hamlet he was, by 
the graver and more philosophic cast of thought 
of the latter time of Elizabeth ; passing on into 
the reign of James I., when pedantry took the 
place of gaiety, and sensual the place of imagi- 
native love in the drama, and artificial art the. 
place of that art which itself is nature ; he preserves 
to the last the natural passion, the simple tenderness, 
the sweetness, grace, and fire of the youthful Eliza- 
bethan poetry. The \Vi7iie7's Tale is as lovely a love- 
story as Romeo a7id Juliet, the Tempest is more instinct 
with imagination and as great in fancy as the Mid- 
summer-Nighfs Dream, and yet there are fully twenty 



IV.] THE ENGLISH DRAMA. 103 

years between them. The only change is in tlie in- 
crease of power and in a closer and graver grasp of 
human nature. In the unchangeableness of this joyful 
and creative art-power Shakspere is almost alone. 
Around hun the whole tone and manner of the diama 
altered for the worse as his life went on, but his work 
grew to the close in strength and beauty. 

81. The Decay of the Drama begins while 
Shakspere is alive. At first one can scarcely call it 
decay, it was so magnificent. For it began with '* rare 
Ben Jonson." His first play, in its very title, Every 
Man in his Humour^ 1596-98, enables us to say in 
what the first step of this decay consisted. The drama 
in Shakspere's hands had been the painting of the 
whole of human nature, the painting of characters as 
they were built up by their natural bent, and by the 
play of circumstance upon them. The drama, in Ben 
Jonson's hands, was the painting of that particular 
human nature which he saw in his own age ; and bis 
characters are not men and women as they are, but as 
they may become when they are mastered by a special 
bias of the mind or Humour..^ ''The Manners, now 
called Humours, feed the Stage," says Jonson himself. 
Every Man in his Humour was followed by Every 
Man Old of his Uu?fiour^ and by Cynthia's Revels^ 
written to satirise the courtiers. The fierce satire of 
these plays brought the town down upon him, and 
he replied to their " noise " in the Poetaster, in which 
Dekker and Marston were satirised. Dekker answered 
with the Satiro-Mastix, a bitter parody on the Poet- 
aster, in which he did not spare Jonson's bodily de- 
fects. The staring Leviathan, as he calls Jonson, is 
not a very untrue description. Silent then for two 
years, he reappeared with the tragedy of Se/anus, and 
then quickly produced three splendid comedies in 
James I.'s reign, Volpone the Fox, the Silent U'omati, 
and the Alchemist, 1605-9-10. The first is the finest 
thing he ever did, as great in power as it is in the 



I04 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

interest and skill of its plot ; the second is chiefly 
valuable as a picture of English life in high society ; 
the third is full to weariness of Jonson's obscure learn- 
ing, but its character of Sir Epicure Mammon redeems 
it. In 1611 his Catiline appeared, and eight years 
after he was made Poet Laureate. Soon he became 
poor and palsy-stricken, but his genius did not decay. 
The most graceful and tender thing he ever wrote 
was written in his old age. His pastoral drama the 
Sad Shepherd proves that, like Shakspere, Jonson 
grew kindjr and gentler as he grew near to death, and 
death took hini in 1637. He was a great man. The 
power and copiousness of the young Elizabethan age 
belonged to him ; and he stands far below, but still 
worthily by, Shakspere, "a robust, surly, and observing 
dramatist." 

82. Masques. — Rugged as Jonson was, he could 
turn to light and graceful work, and it is with his name 
that we connect the Masques. Masques were dramatic 
representations made for a festive occasion, with a re- 
ference to the persons present and the occasion. Their 
personages were allegorical. They admitted of dia- 
logue, music, singing and dancing, combined by the 
use of some ingenious fable into a whole. They were 
made and performed for the court and the houses of 
the nobles, and the scenery was as gorgeous and 
varied as the scenery of the playhouse proper was 
poor and unchanging. Arriving for tlie first time at 
any repute in Henry VHI.'s time, they reached splen- 
dour under James and Charles I. Great men took 
part in them. When Ben Jonson wrote them, Inigo 
Jones made the scenery and Lawes the music; and 
Lord Bacon, Whitelock, and Selden sat in committee 
for the last great masque presented to Charles. Milton 
himself made them worthier by writing Comus, and 
their scenic decoration was soon introduced into 
the regular theatres. 

^l, Beaumont and Fletcher worked together, 



IV.] THE EXGLISII DRAMA, 105 

but out of more tlian fifty plays, all written in James 
I.'s reign, not more than fourteen were shared \x\ by 
Beaumont, who died at the age of tliirty in 16 16, 
Fletcher survived him, and died in 1625. Both were 
of gentle birth. Beaumont, where we can trace his 
work, is weighter and more dignified than his comrade, 
but Fletcher was the better poet. Their Philaster 
and Thie7-ry and Theodoret are fine exanii)les of 
their tragic power. Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess 
is full of lovely poetry, and both are masters of grace 
and pathos and style. 'J'hey enfeebled the blank verse 
of the drama while they rendered it sweeter by using 
feminine endings and adding an eleventh syllable with 
great frequency. This gave freedom and elasticity to 
their verse, and was suited to the dialogue of comedy, 
but it lowered the dignity of their tragedy. The two 
men mark a change in politics and society from 
Shakspere's time. Shakspere's loyalty is constitu- 
tional ; Beaumont and Fletcher are blind supporters 
of James I.'s invention of the divine right of kings. 
Shakspere's society was on the whole decent, and 
it is so in his plays. Beaumont and Fletcher are 
'* studiously indecent." In contrast to them Shak- 
spere is as white as snow. Shakspere's men are of 
the type of Sidney and Raleigh, Burleigh and Drake. 
The men of these two writers represent the "young 
bloods " of the Stuart court ; and even the best of 
their older and graver men are base and foul in thought. 
Their women are either monsters of badness or of 
goodness. When they paint a good woman (two or 
three at most being excepted), she is beyond nature. 
The fact is that the high art which in Shakspere 
sought to give a noble jjleasure by being true to 
human nature in its natural aspects, sank now into 
the baser art which wished to excite, at any cost, the 
passions of the audience by representing human 
nature m unnatural aspects. 

84. In Massinger and Ford this evil is just as 



io6 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

plainly marked. Massinger's first dated play was the 
Virgin AJartyr, 1620. He lived poor, and died '* a 
stranger," in 1639. In these twenty years he wrote 
thirty-seven plays, of which the New Way to Fay 
Old Debts is the best known by its character of 
Sir Giles Overreach. No writer is fouler in language, 
and there is a want of unity of impression both in his 
plots and in his characters. He often sacrifices art 
to effect, and, ''unlike Shakspere, seems to despise 
his own characters." On the other hand, his versi- 
fication and language are flexible and strong, ** and 
seem to rise out of the passions he describes." 
He speaks the tongue of real iije. His men and 
women are far more natural than those of Beaumont 
and Fletcher, and, with all his coarseness, he is the 
most moral of the secondary dramatists. Nowhere is 
his work so great as when he represents the brave man 
struggling through trial to victory, the pure woman 
suffering for the sake of truth and love ; or when he 
describes the terrors that conscience brings on in- 
justice and cruelty. John Ford, his contemporary, 
published his first play, the Loner's Melancholy, in 
1629, and five years after, Perkin Warbeck, the best 
historical drama after Shakspere. Between these 
dates appeared others, of which the best is the Broken 
Heart. He carried to an extreme the tendency of 
the drama to unnatural and horrible subjects, but he 
did so with very great power. He has no comic 
humour, but no man has described better the worn 
and tortured human heart, 

85. Webster and other Dramatists. — Higher 
as a poet, and possessing the same power as Ford, 
though not the same exquisite tenderness, was John 
Webster, whose best drama. The Duchess of Malfi, 
was acted in 16 16. Vittoria C^;w7zZ'(?;2^ was printed in 
161 2, and was followed by the Devits Law Case, 
Appins and Virginia, and others. Webster's peculiar 
power of creating ghastly horror is redeemed 



IV. J THE EiWCL 1:^11 DRAMA. 107 

fiom sensationalism by his poetic insight. His 
imagination easily saw, and expressed in short and 
intense lines, the inmost thoughts and feelings of 
characters whom he represents as wrought on by 
misery, or crime, or remorse, at their very highest 
point of passion. In his worst characters there is some 
redeeming touch, and this poetic pity brings him nearer 
to Shakspere than the rest. He is also neither so 
coarse, nor so great a king worshipper, nor so irreli- 
gious as the others. We seem to taste the Puritan in 
his work. Two comedies, Weshuard Ho I and North- 
ward Ho ! remarkable for the light they throw on the 
manners of the time, were writtn by him along with 
Thomas Dekker. George Chapman is the only one 
of the later Elizabethan dramatists who kept the old 
fire of Marlowe, though he never had the naturalness 
or temperance which lifted Shakspere far beyond 
Marlowe. The same force which we have seen in 
his translation of Homer is to be found in his plays. 
The mingling of intellectual power with imagination, 
violence of words and images with tender and natural 
and often splendid passages, is entirely in the earlier 
Elizabethan manner. Like Marlowe, nay, even more 
than Marlowe, he is always impassioned, and '* hurled 
instinctive fire about the world." These were the 
greatest names among a crowd of dramatists. We 
can only mention John Marston, Henry Glapthorne, 
Richard Brome, William Rowlev,. Thomas Middlcton, ) ^^ ^5 
Cyril Tourneur, andlThomas Heywood. Of these, vi ' 
" all of whom," says Lamb, " spoke nearly the 
same language, and had a set of moral feelings and 
notions in coir.mon," James Shirley is the last. 
He lived till 1666. In him the fire and passion 
of the old time passes away, but some of the 
delicate poetry remains, and in him the Elizabethan 
drama dies. In 1642 the theatres were closed during 
the calamitous times of the Civil War. Strolling 
players managed to exi.^t with didiculty, and against 

10 



io8 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

the law, till 1656, when Sir William Davenant had 
his opera of the Siege of Rhodes acted in London. 
It was the beginning of a new drama, in every point 
but impurity ditierent from the old, and four years 
after, at the Restoration, it broke loose from the prison 
of Puritanism to indulge in a shameless license. 

In this rapid sketch of the Drama in England we 
have been carried on beyond the death of Elizabeth 
to the date of the Restoration. It was necessary, 
because it keeps the whole story together. We now 
return to the time that followed the accession of 
James I. 



CHAPTER V. 

FROM Elizabeth's death to the restoration. , 
1603-1660. 

Lord Bacon, Advancement of learning- (two book-), 1605 ; 
expanded into nine Latin books, 1623 ; Novum Organon 
(first sketch), 1607 ; finished, 1620 : IHstoria Naturalis et 
Ex-berimentalis, 1622- These three form the Instauratio 
Magna; last edition oi Essays, 1625; dies, 1626- —Giles 
Fletcher's Temptation of X'hrisf, 1610- — W. Browne's 
Britannias Pastorals, 1813, 16. — ]- Donne's Poeins and 
Satires, 1613-1635.— G. Wither, Po'ems, 1613-1622-164L 
— Gori^e Herbert, Temple, 1631. — Jeremy Taylor, Liberty 
of Prophesying, 1647. — !<• Herrick, Hesperides, 1648— 
Hobbes' Leviathan^ 1651- — T. Fuller's Church History, 
1656.— J. Mihon, born 1608 ; First Poem, 1626 ; H Allegro, 
1632 ; Comus and Lycidas, 1634-1637 ; Prose writings and 
mo.t of the Sonnets, 1640-1660 ; Paradise Lost, 1667 \ 
Paradise Regained 2iX\& Sanson A oofiistes, 1671= dies 1674. 
Banyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 1678-1684- 

86. The Literature of this Period may fairly 
be called Elizabethan, but not so altogether. The 
Prose retained the manner of the Elizabethan time and 



v.] hLlZABETlI TO THE RESTOKATIuN. 109 

the faults of its style, but gradually grew into greater 
excellence, si)read itself over larger fields of thought 
and took up a greater variety of subjects. The Poetry, 
on the contrary, decayed. It exaggerated the vices 
of the Elizabethan art, and lost its virtues. But this 
is not the whole account of the matter. We must add 
that a new Prose, of greater force of thought and of a 
simpler s'.ylj than the Eli-'abethan, arose in the writings 
of a theologian like Chillingworth and a pliilosopher 
like Hobbes : and that a new type of poetry, distinct 
from that " metaphysical " poetry of fantastic wit into 
which Elizabethan poetry had degenerated, was written 
by some of the lyrical writers of the court. It was 
Elizabethan in its lyric note, but it was not obscure. 
It had grace, simplicity, and smoothness. In its greater 
art and clearness it tells us that the critical school is 
at hand. 

87. Prose Literature. — Philosophy passed 
from Elizabeth into the reign of James I. with Francis 
Bacon. The splendour of the form and of the English 
prose of the Advancement of Learning, two books of 
which were published in 1605, raises it into the realm 
of pure literature. It was expanded into nine Latin 
books in 1623, and with the Novum Organon, finished 
in 1620, and \\\q Historia Naturalis et Experimentalise 
1622, formed the l7istaiiratio Magna. The impulse 
these books gave to research, and to the true method 
of research, though only partly right, awoke scientific 
inquiry in England ; and before the Royal Society was 
constituted in the reign of Charles II., our science, 
though far behind that of the Continent, had done 
some good work. William Harvey lectured on the 
Circulation of the Blood in 1615, and during the Civil 
War and the Commonwealth men like Robert BoyL\ 
the chemist, and John Wallis, the mathematician, and 
others met in William Petty's rooms at Brazenose, 
and prepared the way for Newton. 

88. History, except in the publication of the earlier 



no ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Chronicles of Archbishop Parker, does not appear in 
the later part of Ehzabeth's reign, but under James I. 
Camden, Spehnan, Selden, and Speed continued the 
antiquarian researches of Stow and Grafton. Bacon 
pubUshed a History of Henry VII. and Daniel the poet, 
ill his History of England to the Time of Edward I 11.^ 
1 6 13-18, was one of the first to throw history into such 
a literary form as to make it popular. Knolles' 
History of the Turks, 1603; and Sir Walter 
Raleigh's vast sketch oi the History of the World 
show how for the first time history spread itself be- 
yond English interests. Raleigh's book, written in 
the peaceful evening of a stormy life, and in the 
cjuiet of his prison, is not only literary from the 
ease and vigour of its style, but from its still spirit of 
melancholy thought. 

In 1 6 14, John Selden's Titles of Honour added to 
the accurate work he had done in Latin on the English 
Records, and his History of Titles was written Avith 
the same careful regard for truth in 16 18. Thomas 
May, the dramatist, wrote the History of the Parlia- 
ment of England, ivhich began 1640, for the Parliament 
ill 1647, a history with a purpose; but the only book 
of literary note is Thomas Fuller's Church History of 
Britain, 1656. The antiquarian research that makes 
materials for history was carried on by Ashmole, 
Dugdale, and Rushworth. 

89. Miscellaneous Literature. — The pleasure 
of travel, still lingering among us from Elizal)eth's 
reign, tound a quaint voice in Thomas Coryat's Cru- 
dities, which, in 161 1, describes his journey through 
France and Italy, and in George Sandy's book, 16 15, 
which tells his journey in the East ; while Henry 
Wotton's Lettei's from Italy are pleasant reading. 
The care with which Samuel Purchas, in 1613, en- 
larged Hakluyt's Voyages, brings us back to the time 
when adventure was delight in England, and he con- 
tinued the same work, 1625, under the title of Purchas, 



v.] ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION. ui 

his Pi/grimes. The painting of short Characters was 
begun by Sir Thomas Overbury's book in 1614, and 
carried on by John PLarle and Joseph Hall, who be- 
came bishops. This kind of literature marks the 
interest in individual life which now began to arise, 
and which soon took form in Biography. Thomas 
Fuller's J My and Profane State, 1642, added to 
sketches of " characters," illustrations of them in the 
lives of fLunous persons, and in 1662 his Worthies of 
Pn^lanJ, still further advanced the literature of bio- 
graphy. He is a quaint and delightful writer ; good 
sense, piety, and inventive wit are woven together in 
his work. We may place together Robert Burton's 
Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621, and Sir Thomas 
Browne's ./vW^w Medici, 1642, and Pscudodoxia as 
books which treat of miscellaneous subjects in a witty 
and learned fashion, but without any true scholarship. 
This kind of writing was greatly increased by the 
setting lip of libraries, where men dipped into every 
kind of literature. It was in James I.'s reign that Sir 
Thomas Bodley established the Bodleian at Oxford, 
and Sir Robert Cotton a library now placed in the 
British Museum. A number of writers took part in 
t!^.e Puritan and Church controversies; but none of 
them deserve, save Milton, and Prynne, and James 
Usher, the name of literary men. Usher's work was, 
as an Irish Archbishop, chiefly taken up by the Roman 
Catholic controversy. William Prynne's fierce in- 
vective against the drama in the Histriomastix^ or 
Scourge of Players, earned for him one of the most 
cruel sentences of the Star Chamber. But he out- 
lived imprisonment by both parties, and his Perfect 
Narrative is a graphic account of his efforts to gain 
admission to the House in Charles II. 's reign. Charles 
made him Keeper of the Records, and he spent the 
rest of his varied life in antiquarian researches. In 
pleasant contrast to these controversies appears the 
gentle literature of Izaak Walton's Complcat Angler^ 
8* 



112 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

1653, a book which resembles in its quaint and gar- 
rulous style the rustic scenery and pratding rivers that 
it celebrates, and marks the quiet interest in country- 
life which now began to grow in England. 

Theology. — But there were others who rose above 
the war of party on both sides into the calm air of 
spiritual religion. The English of Lancelot Andrewe's 
pious learning was excelled by the poetic prose of 
Jeremy Taylor, who, at the close of Charles I.'s 
reign, published his Great Exej7iplar and the Holy 
Living and Dying, and shortly afterwards his Sen7ions. 
They had been preceded in 1647 by his Libertv of 
Prophesying, in which, agreeing with John Hales 
and William Chillingvvorth, who wrote during the 
reign of Charles I., he pleaded the cause of religious 
liberty and toleration, and of rightness of life as 
more important than a correct theology, and did 
the same kind of work for freedom of Biblical in- 
terpretation as Milton strove to do in his System 
of Christian Doctrine. Taylor's work is especially 
literary. Weighty with argument, his books are even 
more read for their sweet and deep devotion, for 
their rapid, impassioned and convoluted eloquence. 
On the other side, the fine sermons of Richard Sibbes 
converted Richard Baxter, wliose manifold literary 
work only ended in the reign of James II. One 
little thing of his, written at the close of the Civil 
W^ar, became a household book in England. There 
used to be few cottages which did not possess a copy 
of the Saints' Everlasting Rest. A vast number of 
sects arose during the Commonwealth, but the only 
one which gave birth to future literature was started 
by George Fox, the first Quaker. 

The style of nearly all these writers links them to the 
age of Elizabeth. It did not follow the weighty gravity 
of Hooker, or the balanced calm and splendour of 
Bacon, but rather the witty quaintness of Lyly and 
of Sidney. The prose of men like Browne and 



v.] ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION. 113 

Burton and Fuller is not as poetic as that of these 
Elizaheiiian writers, but it is just as fanciful. Even 
the prose of Jeremy Taylor is over - poetical, and 
though it has all the Elizabethan ardour, it has also 
the Elizabethan faults of excessive wordiness and 
fantastic wit. It never knows where to stop. Mil- 
ton's prose works, which shall be mentioned in their 
place in his life, are also Elizabethan in style. 
They have the fire and violence, the eloquence and 
diffuseness, of the earlier literature, but in spite of 
the praise their style has received, it can in reality be 
scarcely called a style. It has all the faults a prose 
style can have except obscurity and vulgarity. Its 
magnificent bursts of eloquence ought to be in poetry, 
and it never charms except when Milton becomes 
purposely simple in personal narrative. There is no 
pure style in prose writing till Hobbes began to write 
in English — indeed we may say till after the Restora- 
tion, unless w-e except, on grounds of weight and 
power, the styles of Bacon and Hooker. 

90. The Decline of Poetry. — The various 
elements which we have noticed in the poetry of 
Elizabeth's reign, without the exception even of the 
slight Catholic element, though opposed to each 
other, were filled with one spirit — the love of England 
and the Queen. Nor were they ever sharply divided ; 
they are found interwoven, and modifying one 
another in the same poet, as for instance Puritanism 
and Chivalry in Spenser, Catholicism and Love in 
Constable ; and all are mixed together in Shakspere 
and the dramatists. This unity of spirit in poetry 
became less and less after the queen's death. The 
elements remained, but they were separated. The 
cause of this was that the strife in politics between 
the Divine Rii^ht of Kings and Liberty, and in religion 
between the Church and the Puritans, grew so defined 
and intense that England ceased to be at one, and the 
poets represented the parties, not the whole, of Eng- 

H 



114 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

land. But they all shared in a certain style which 
induced Johnson to call them inetaphysicaL "They 
were those," Hallam says, *'who laboured after con- 
ceits, or novel turns of thought, usually false, and 
resting on some equivocation of language or exceed- 
ingly remote analogy." This style, originating in the 
Eiiphues and Arcadia^ was driven out by the passion 
which filled poetry in the middle period of Eliza- 
beth's reign, but was taken up again towards its 
close, and grew after her death until it ended by 
greatly lessening good sense and clearness in Eng- 
lish poetry. It was in the reaction from it, and in 
the determination to bring clear thought and clear 
expression of thought into English verse, that the 
school of Dryden and Pope — the critical school — 
began. The poetry from the later years of Elizabeth 
to Milton illustrates all these remarks. 

91. The Lyric Poetry struck a new note in the 
songs of Ben Jonson, such as the Hymn to Diana. 
They are less natural, less able to be sung than 
Shakspere's, more classical, more artificial. Drayton's 
Agincoiw is one of the many lyrics still written on the 
glories of England, and Wither in some of his songs 
still recalls the Elizabethan charm. In Charles I.'s reign 
the lyrics of dramatists like Ford, Shirley, Webster, 
and others, retain the same charm. But none of 
them have any special tendency. A new character, 
royalist and of the court, now appears in the lyrics of 
Thomas Carew, Edmund Waller, Abraham Cow- 
ley, Sir John Suckling, Colonel Lovelace, and 
Robert Herrick whose Hcsperides was published in 
1648. They are, for the most part, light, pleasant, 
short songs and epigrams on the passing interests of 
the day, on the charms of the court beauties, on a 
lock of hair, a dress, on all the fleeting forms of 
fleeting love. Here and there we find a pure or 
pathetic song, and there are few of them which time 
has selected that do not possess a gay or a gentle 



v.] ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION. 115 

grace. As the Civil War deepened, the special court 
poetry died, and the songs became songs of battle 
and inarching, and devoted and violent loyalty. These 
have been lately collected under the title of Songs of 
the Cavaliers. Midst of them all, like voices from 
another world, purer, more musical, and filled with 
ihe spirit of fine art, were heard the lyrical strains of 
Milton. 

92. Satirical Poetry, always arising when natural 
passion in poetry decays, is represented in the later 
days of Elizabeth by Marston the dramatist's coarse 
but vigorous satires, and Joseph Hall, afterwards 
Kishop Hall, whose Virgidemiarum^ 1597? satires partly 
in poetry, make him the master satirist of this time. 
John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, who also parUy 
belongs to the age of Elizabeth, was, with John 
Cleveland (a furious royalist and satirist of Charles I.'s 
time), the most obscure and fanciful of these poets. 
Donne, however, rose above the rest in the beauty 
of thought and in the tenderness of his religious and 
love poems. His satires are graphic pictures of the 
manners of the age of James I. Georoe Wither hit 
the follies and vices of the days so hard in his Abuses 
Stript and IV/iipt, 1613, that he was put into the 
iMarshalsea prison and there continued his satires in 
the Shepherd's Hunting. As the Puritan and the 
Royalist became more opposed to one another, 
satirical poetry naturally became more bitter ; but, 
like the lyrical poetry of the Civil War, it took the 
form of short songs and pieces which went about 
the country, as those of Bishop Corbet did, in manu- 
script. 

93. The Rural Poetry. — The pastoral now 
began to take a more truly rural form than the conven- 
tional pastorals of France and Italy, out of which it 
rose. In William Browne's Britannia s Pastorals, 
1 6 13 (second part, 16 16), followed by the seven 
eclogues of the Shepherd's Pipe, the element of 

H 2 



1 1 6 ENGL ISH L ITER A TURE. [chap. 

pleasure in country life arises, and from this time it 
begins to grow in our poetry. It appears slightly in 
Wkher's Shepherd's IItmti?ig, but plainly in his 
Alistress of Fhikwete, while Uenham's Cooper's Hill, 
1643, introduces the poetry which makes natural land- 
scape the ground of philosophic meditation. This 
element of enjoyment of nature, seen already in 
Walton's Compleat Angler, is most strong in Andrew 
Marvell, Milton's friend. In imaginative intensity, 
in the fusing together of personal feehng and thought 
with the delight received from nature, his verses on 
the £migra7its in the Berviudas and the Thonxhts in 
c Garden, and the little poem, The Girl Describes her 
Fawn, are like the work of Wordsworth on one side, 
and like good Elizabethan work on the other. They 
are, with Milton's songs, the last and the truest echo 
of the lyrics of the time of Elizabeth, but they reach 
beyond them in the love of nature. 

94. Spenserians. — Among these broken-up formii 
of poetry, there was one kind which was imitative of 
Spenser. Phineas Fletcher, Giles Fletcher, 
Henry More in his Flatoiiical Song of the Soul, 
1642, and John Chalkhill in his Thealma, owned 
him as their master. The Purple Island, 1633, of 
the first, an elaborate allegory of the body and mind 
of man, has some grace and sweetness, and tells us 
that the scientific element, which, after the Restoration 
took form in the setting up of the Royal Society, was 
so far spread in England at his time as to influence 
the poets. 

95. Religious Poetry. — The Temptation and 
Victory of Christ, 16 to, of Giles Fletcher, is a deli- 
cately-wrought poem, and gave hints to Milton for the 
Paradise Regained. It was a finished piece, but the 
religious poetry chiefly took form in collections of short 
poems. Among these we mention William Drum- 
mond's Flowers of Sio?i in which Platonism lingered, 
and Donne's religious poems in which he showed his 



v.] ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION. 117 

ingenuity more than his devotion. Of them all, how- 
ever, the Temple, 163 1, of George Herbert, rector 
of Bemcrton, has been the most popular. The purity 
and profound devotion of its poems have made it 
dear to all. Its gentle Church feeling has pleased all 
classes ot Churclnnen ; its great (luaiiitness, which 
removes it from true poetry, has added perhaps to its 
charm. With him we must rank Henry Vaughan, the 
Silurist, whose Sacred Poems (1651;, are ecjually devo- 
tional, pure, and quaint ; and Francis Quarles, whose 
Divine Emblems, i635> >^ s'^ill read in the cottages of 
England. On the Roman Catholic side, William 
Habington mingled his devotion to his religion 
with the praises of his wife under \\\tw2imtoi Castara, 
1634; and Richard Crashaw, whose rich inventive- 
ness was not made less rich by the religious mysticism 
which finally led him to become a Roman Catholic, 
j)ublished his St(ps to the Temple in 1646. On the 
Puritan side, we may now place George Wither, 
whose Hallelujah, 1641, a series of religious poems, 
was sent forth just before the Civil War began, when 
lie left tne king's side to support the Parliament. 
Even Herrick, in 1648, expressed the pious part of his 
nature in his Noble Numbers. Finally, religious poetry, 
after the return of Charles II., passed on tlirough the 
Davideis of Abraham Cowley, and the Divine Love 
of Edmund Waller, to find its highest expression in 
the Paradise Lost. We have thus traced through all 
its forms the decline of poetry. From this decay we 
pass into a new created world when we come to 
speak of Milton. Between the dying poetry of the 
past and the uprising of a new kind of poetry in 
Dryden, stands alone the majestic work of a great 
genius who touches the Elizabethan time with one 
hand and our own time with the other. 

96. John Milton was the last of the Elizabethans, 
and, except Shakspere, far the greatest of them all. 
Born in 1608, in Bread-street (close by the Mermaid 



ii8 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Tavern), he may have seen Shakspere, for he re- 
mained till he was sixteen in London. His literary 
life may be said to begin with his entrance into Cam- 
bridge, in 1625, the year of the accession of Charles I. 
Nicknamed the "Lady of Christ's^' from his beauty 
and delicate taste and morality, he soon attained a 
great fame, and during the seven years of his life at 
the university his poetic genius opened itself in the 
English poems of which I give the dates. On the 
Death of a Fair Infant, 1626. At a Vacation Exercise, 
1628. Oji the Mo7-ning of Christ's Nativity, 1629. 
On the Circumcision, On Time, At a Solemn Musick, 
The Passion, Epitaph on Shakspe?'e, 1630. On the 
University Carrier, Epitaph on Maixhioness of Wor- 
cester, 1631 ; Sonnet i., On Attaining the Age of Twenty- 
three ; Sonnet a., To the Nightingale. The first sonnet, 
explained by a letter that accompanied it, shows that 
Milton had given up his intention of becoming a 
clergyman. He left the university in 1632, and went 
to live at Horton, near Windsor, where he spent five 
years, steadily reading the Greek and Latin writer-^, 
and amusing himself with mathematics and music. 
Poetry was not neglected. The Allegro and Pense- 
roso were written in 1633, and probably the Arcades; 
Co?nus was acted in 1634, and Lycidas composed in 
1637. They prove that though Milton was Puritan in 
heart his Puritanism was of that earlier type which 
neither disdained the arts nor letters. But they re- 
present a growing revolt from the Court and the 
Church. The Penseroso prefers the contemplative 
life to the mirthful, and Comus, though a masque, 
rose into a poem to die glory of temperance, and 
under its allegory attacked the Court. Three years 
later, Lycidas interrupts its exquisite stream of poetry 
with a fierce and resolute onset on the greedy 
shepherds of the Church. Milton had taken his 
Presbyterian bent. 

In 1638 he went to Italy, the second home of so 



V.J ELIZABETH TO THE RESTORATION. 119 

many of the English poets, and visited Florence, 
where he saw Galileo, and Rome. \\. Naples he 
heard the sad news of civil war, which determined 
him to return ; *' inasmuch as 1 tliought it base to be 
travelling at my ease for amusement, while my fellow- 
countrymen at home were fighting for libeity." But 
.I^.earing that the war had not yet arisen, he remained 
in Italy till the end of 1639, and at the meeting of 
the I-ong Parliament we find him in a house in 
Aldersgate, where he lived till 1645. He had pro- 
jected while abroad a great epic poem on the subject 
of Arthur (again the Welsh subject returns), but in 
London his mind changed, and among a number of 
subjects, lendcd at last to Paradise Lost, which he 
meant to throw into the form of a Greek 'J'ragedy 
with lyrics and choruses. 

97. Milton's Prose — The Commonwealth. 
— Suddenly his wliole life changed, and for twenty 
years — 1640-1660 — he was carried out of art into 
politics, out of poetry into prose. Most of the Son- 
tiefs, however, belong to this time. Stately, rugged, 
or graceful, as he pleased to make thein, some like 
Hebrew psalms, others having the classic ease of 
Horace, some even tender as Milton could gravely be, 
they are true, unlike those of Shakspere and Spenser, 
to the correct form of this difficult kind of poetry. 
l»ut they were all he could now do of his true work. 
Before the Civil War began in 1642, he had written 
five vigorous pamphlets against Episcopacy. Six more 
pamphlets a])peared in the next two years. One of 
these was the Areopa'^itica ; 07; Speech for the Liberty 
of Unlicensed Frintin^^, 1644, a bold and eloquent 
attack on the censorship of the press by the Presby- 
terians. Another was a tract on Education. The 
four pamphlets in which he advocated conditional 
divorce made him still more the horror of the 
Presbyterians. In 1646 he published his poems, and 
in that year the sonnet On the Forcers of Conscience 

U 



I20 EXCLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

shows that he had wholly ceased to be Presbyterian. 
His political pamphlets begin when his Tejiure of 
Kings and Magistrates defended in 1649 the execu- 
tion of the king. The Eikonodastes answered the 
Eikon Basilike (a portraiture of the sufferings of the 
king by Dr. Gauden), and his famous Latin Defence 
for the People of Engla7id, 1651, replied to Salmasius' 
Defence of Charles /, and inflicted so pitiless a lashing 
on the great Leyden scholar, that his fame went over 
the whole of Europe. In the next year he wholly 
lost his sight. But he continued his work (being 
Latin secretary since 1649) when Cromwell was made 
Protector, and wrote another Defence for the Eng- 
lish People, 1654, and a further Defence of himself 
against scurrilous charges. This closed the controversy 
in 1655. I" the last year of the Protector's life he 
began the Paradise Lost, but the death of Cromwell 
threw him back into politics, and three more pamphlets 
on the questions of a Free Church and a Free Com- 
monwealth were useless to prevent the Restoration. 
It was a wonder he was not put to death in 1660, and 
he was in hiding and in custody for a time. At last 
he settled in a house near Bunhill Fields. It was 
here that Paradise Lost was finished, before the end 
of 1665, and then published in 1667. 

98. Paradise Lost.— We may regret that Milton 
was shut away from his art during twenty years of con- 
troversy. But it may be that the poems he wrote, 
when the great cause he fought for had closed in 
seeming defeat but real victory, gained from its solemn 
issues and from the morah grandeur with which he 
wrought for its ends their majestic movement, their 
grand style, and their grave beauty. During the struggle 
he had never forgotten his art. " I may one day hope/' 
he said, speaking of his youthful studies, " to have ye 
again, in a still time, when there shall be no chiding. 
Not in these Noises," and the saying strikes the note 
of calm sublimity which is kept in Paradise Lost. It 



v.] ELIZA lUi in 10 HIE 1<E6T0!:aTI0X. 121 

opens with the awaking of the rebel angels in Hell 
after their fall from Heaven, the consultaiion of their 
chiefs how best to carry on the war with God, and the 
resolve of Satan to go forth and tempt newly createtl 
man to fall. He takes his flight to the earth and finds 
Eden. Kden is then described, and Adam and Eve 
in their innocence. The next four books, from the 
fifth to the eighth, contain the Archangel Raphael's 
story of the war in Heaven, the fall of Satan, and 
the creation of the world. The last four books de- 
scribe the temptation and the fall of Man, the vision 
shown by Michael to Adam of the future world, and 
of the redemption of Man by Christ, and finally 
the expulsion from Paradise. 

As we read the great epic, we feel that the light- 
ness of heart of the Allegro^ that even the classic philo- 
sophy of the ComuSf are gone. The beauty of the 
poem is like that of a stately temple, which, vast in con- 
cciption, is involved in detail. The style is the greatest 
ill the whole range of Pinglish poetry. Milton's intel- 
lectual force suj^ports and condenses his imaginative 
force, and his art is almost too conscious ot itself. 
Sublimity is its essential difference. The interest of 
the story collects at first round the character of Satan, 
but he grows meaner as the poem gojs on, and his 
second degradation after he has destroyed innocence 
is one of the finest and most consistent motives in 
the poem. The tenderness of Milton, his love of 
beauty, the pa'ssionate fitness of his words to his 
work, his religious depth, fill the scenes in which 
he paints Paradise, our parents and their fall, and at 
last all thought and emotion centre round Adam and 
Eve, until the closing lines leave us with their lonely 
image on our minds. In every part of the poem, in 
every character in it, as indeed in all his poems, 
Milton's intense individuality appears. It is a plea- 
sure to find it. The egotism of such a man, said 
Coleridge, is a revelation of spirit. 



1=2 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

99. Milton's Later Pcems. — Paradise Lost w^,-?, 
followed by Paradise Regained and Sa7?iso7i Ag07iistes, 
published together in 167 1. Pai'adise Regained o'^QXi's, 
with the journey of Christ into the wilderness after Bis 
baptism, and its four books describe the temptation of 
Christ by Satan, and the answers and victory of the 
Redeemer. The speeches in it drown the action, and 
their learned argument is only relieved by a few de- 
scriptions : but these, as in that of Athens, are done 
with Milton's highest power. The same sobmn beauty 
of a quiet mind and a more severe style than that of 
Paradise Lost make us feel in it that Milton has grown 
older. 

In Samson Jjgo/iistes the style is still severer, even 
to the verge of a harshness which the sublimity alone 
tends to modify. It is a choral drama, after the 
Greek model. Samson in his blindness is described, 
is called on to make sport for the Philistines, and 
overthrows them in the end. Samson represents the 
fallen Puritan cause, and Samson's victorious death 
Milton's hop2s for the final triumph of that cause. 
The poem has all the grandeur of the last words 
of a great man in whom there was now "calm of 
mind, all passion spent." It is also the last word of 
the music of the Elizabethan drama long after its 
notes seemed hushed, and the sound is strange in 
the midst of the new world of the Restoration. Soon 
afterwards, November, 1674, blind and old and fallen 
on evil days, Milton died ; but neither bUndness, old 
age, nor e/il days could lessen the inward light, nor 
impair the imaginative power with which he sang, it 
seemed with the angels, the "undisturbed song of pure 
concent," until he joined himself, at last, with those 
"just spirits who wear victorious palms." 

100. His Work. — To the greatness of the artist 
Milton joined the majesty of a pure and lofty cha- 
racter. His poetic style was as stately as his character, 
and proceeded from it. Living at a time when criti- 



V.J ELIZABETIJ TO 711 E RESTORATIOiY. 123 

cism began to purify the verse of England, and being 
himself well acciuaintcd with the great classical models, 
his work is seldom weakened by the false conceits and 
the intemperance of the Elizabethan writers, and yet 
is as imaginative as theirs, and as various. He has 
not their naturalness, nor all their intensity, but he 
his a larger grace, a more finished art, and a sublime 
dignity they did not possess. All the kinds of poetry 
whicli he touched he touched with the ease of great 
strength, and with so much weight, that they became 
new in his hands. He put a new life into the masque, 
the sonnet, the elegy, the descriptive lyric, the song, 
the choral drama ; and he created the epic in England. 
The lighter love poem he never wrote, and we are 
grateful that he kept his coarse satirical power apart from 
liis poetry. In some points he was untrue to his descent 
from the Elizabethans, for he had no dramatic faculty, 
and he had no humour. He summed up in himself 
the learned influences of the English Renaissance, and 
handed them on tons. His taste was as severe, his verse 
as polished, his method and language as strict as those 
of the school of Dryden and Pope that grew up when 
he was old. A literary past and present thus met in 
him, nor did he fail, like all the greatest men, to make 
a cast into the future. He began the poetry of pure 
natural description. Lastly, he did not represent in 
any way the England that followed the tyranny, the 
coarseness, the sensuality, the falseness, or the ir- 
religion of the Stuarts, but he did represent Puritan 
England, and the whole career of Puritanism from 
its cradle to its grave. 

10 1. The Pilgrim's Progress. — We might say 
that Puritanism said its last great words with iMilton, 
were it not that its spirit continued in English life, 
were it not also that four years after his death, in 
1678, John Bun van, who had previously written 
religious poems, and in 1665 the Holy City, published 
the Filgrim's Progress, It is the journey of Christian 



124 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

the Pilgrim, from the City of Destruction to the 
Celestial City. The second part was pubHshed in 1684, 
and in 1682 the allegory of the Holy War. I class the 
Pilgrim's Progress here, because in its imaginative 
fervour and poetry, and in its quality of naturalness, 
it belongs to the spirit of the Elizabethan times. 
Written by a man of the people, it is a people's book ; 
and its simple form grew out of passionate feeling, and 
not out of self-conscious art. The passionate feeling 
was religious, and in painting the pilgrim's progress 
towards Heaven, and his battle with the world and 
temptation, and sorrow, the book touched those deep 
and poetical interests which belong to poor and 
rich. Its language, the language of the Bible, and its 
allegorical form, set on foot a plentiful literature of 
the same kind. But none have equalled it. Its form 
is almost epic : its dramatic dialogue, its clear types 
of character, its vivid descriptions, as of Vanity Fair, 
and of places such as the Dark Valley and the Delect- 
able Mountains which represent states of the human 
soul, have given an equal but a different pleasure to 
children and men, to the ignorant villager and to 
Lord Macaulay. 



VI.] KESTORA'IION TO DEA71I OF POPE. 125 



CHAPTER VI. 

FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF POPE 
AND SWIFT. 

1660-1745. 

Butler's Hxtdihras, 1663- —J- Dryden, born 1631 ; his Dravias 
beyin 1663 ; Absalom and Ahitoplul, 1681 ; Hmd and 
Panther, J 687 ; Eables and death, 1700.— Wycherley, 
Conq;rcve. Farquhar, and Vanhrufrh, Dramas, from 1672- 
1726.— Newton's Principia, 1687. — Locke's Plssay on the 
Ifninan Understanding, 1690- — Alexander Tope, born 
1688; Pastorals, 1709; Rape of the Lock, yjYl; Homer 
finished, 1725: J^ssay on Man, 17321734:; Dunciad 
finished, 1741 ; dies, 1744.— Swift's Tale of a Tub, 1704 ; 
Gullivers Travels, 37 26- — Defoe's Robinson Crusoe,'Yl\^. 
Steele and Addison, Spectator, 1711.— Addison's Cato, 
1713 v^^x^^£x'^^lullogy, 1736- 

102. Poetry. Change of Style. — We have seen 
the natural style as distinguished from the artificial in 
the Elizabethan poets. Style became not only natural 
but artistic when it was used by a great genius like 
Shakspere or Spenser, for a first-rate poet creates 
rules of art ; his work itself is often art. But when 
the art of poetry is making, its rules are not laid down, 
and the second-rate poets, inspired only by their feel- 
ings, will write in a natural style unrestrained by rules, 
that is, thjy will put their feelings into verse without 
caring much for the form in which they do it. As 
long as they live in the midst of a youthful national 
life, and feel an ardent sympathy with it, their style 
will be fresh and impassioned, and give pleasure be- 
cause of the strong feeling that inspires it. But it 
will also be extravagant and unrestrained in its use of 



1 26 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [c hap. 

images and words because of its want of art. This is 
the history of the style of the poets of the middle 
period of Elizabeth's reign. (2) Afterwards the na- 
tional life grew chill, and the feelings of the poets 
also chill. Then the want of art in the style made 
itself felt. The far-fetched images, the hazarded 
meanings, the over-fanciful way of putting thoughts, 
the sensational expression of feeling, in which the 
Elizabethan poets indulged, not only appeared in 
all their ugliness when they were inspired by no 
warm feeling, but were indulged in far more than 
bjfore. Men tried to produce by extravagant use 
of words the same results that ardent feeling had 
produced, and the more they failed the more ex- 
travagant and fantastic they became, till at last 
their poetry ceased to have clear meaning. This is 
the history of the style of the poets from the later 
days of Elizabeth till the Civil War. (3) The natural 
style, unregulated by art, had thus become unnatural. 
When it had reached that point, men began to feel 
how necessary it was that the style of poetry should 
be subjected to the rules of art, and two influences 
partly caused and partly supported this desire. One 
was the influence of Milton. Milton, flrst by his superb 
genius, which as I said creates of itself an artistic 
style, and secondly by his knowledge and imitation 
of the great classical models, was able to give the 
first example in England of a pure, grand, and 
finished style, and in blank verse and the sonnet, 
wrote for the first time with absolute correctness. 
Another influence was that of the movement all over 
Europe towards inquiry into the right way of doing 
things, and into the truth of things, a movement we 
shall soon see at work in science, politics, and religion. 
In poetry it produced a school of criticism which 
first took form in France, and the influence of Boileau, 
La Fontaine, and others who were striving after 
greater finish and neatness of expression, told on Eng- 



VI.] RESTORATION TO DEATH OE POPE. 127 

land now. It is an influence \vhich has been ex- 
aggerated. It is absurd to place the ''creaking lyre " 
of lioileau side by side widi Dryden's "long re- 
sounding march and energy divine " of verse. Our 
critical school of poets have no French qualities in 
them even when they imitate the French. (4) Further, 
our own poets had already, before the Restoration, 
begun the critical work, and the French influence 
served only to give it a greater impulse. We shall 
see the growth of a colder and more correct spirit of 
art in Cowley, Denham, and Waller. Vigorous form 
was given to that spirit by Dryd^n, and perfection 
of artifice added to it by Pope. The artificial ^\.)\q 
succeeded to and extinguished the natural. 

103. Change of Poetic Subject. — The subject 
of the p:iizabethan poets was Man as mfluenced by the 
Passions, and it was treated from the side of natural 
feeling. This was fully and splendidly done by Shak- 
spere. But alter a time this subject followed, as we 
have seen in speaking of the drama, the same career 
as the style. It was treated in an extravagant and 
sensational manner, and the representation of the j)as- 
sions tended to become, and did become unnatural or 
fantastic. Milton alone redeemed the subject from 
this vicious excess. He wrote in a grave and natural 
manner of the passions of the human heart, and he 
made strong the religious passions of love of God, 
sorrow for sin, and others, in English poetry. But with 
him the subject of man as influenced by the passions 
died for a time. Dryden, Pope, and their followers, 
turned to another. They left the passions aside, and 
wrote of the things in which the intellect and the con- 
science, the social and political instincts in man 
were interested. \n this way the satiric, didactic, 
philosophical, and party poetry of a new school arose. 

104. Transition Poets. — There were a few 
poets, writing partly before and partly after the Re- 
storation, who represent the passage from the fantastic 

9* 



128 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

to the more correct style. Abraham Cowley was one 
of these. His love poems, The AUsh'ess, 1647, are 
courtly, witty, and have some of the Elizabethan 
imagination. His later poems, owing probably to 
his life in France, were more exact in verse, and 
more cold in form. The same may be said of Edmund 
Waller, who " first made writing in rhyme easily 
an art." He also lived a long time in France, and 
died in 1687. Sir John Denham's Coopers If ill, 1643, 
was a favourite with Dryden for the "majesty of 
its style," and its didactic reflectiveness, and the chill 
stream of its verse and thought link him closely to 
Pope. Nor ought I to omit, as an example of the 
heroic poem, William Chamberlayne's Pharonnida, 
1659. Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert, 1651, also an 
heroic poem, is perhaps the most striking example of 
this transidon. Worthless as poetry, it represents the 
new interest in political philosophy and in science that 
was arising, and preludes the intellectual poetry. Its 
prefpxe discourses of rime and the- rules of art, and 
represents the new critical influence which came 
over with the exiled court from France, The critical 
school had therefore begun even l)efore Dryden's 
poems were written. The change was less sudden 
than it seemed. 

Satiric poetry, soon to become a greater thing, was 
made during this transition time into a powerful weapon 
by two men, each on a different side. Andrew Marvell's 
Satires, after the Restoration, embody the Puritan's 
wrath with the vices of the court and king, and his 
Fhame for the disgrace of England among the nations. 
The Hudibras of Samuel Butler, in 1663, represents 
the fierce reaction which had set in against Puritanism. 
It is justly famed for wit, learning,, good sense, and 
ingenious drollery, and, in accordance with the new 
criticism, it is absolutely v.^ithout obscurity. It is 
often as terse as Pope's best work. But it is too 
long, its wit wearies us at last, and it undoes the force 



VI.] RESTORATION TO DEATH OF TOTE. 129 

of its attack on tlie Puritans by its exagi;eration. 
Satire should have at least the semblance of truth : 
yet Butler calls the Puritans cowards. We turn now 
to the first of these poets in whom poetry is founded 
on intellect rather than on feeling, and whose best 
verse is devoted to argument and satire. 

105. John Dry den was the first of the new, as 
Milton was the last of the elder, school of poetry. 
It was late in life that he gained fame. Born in 
163 1, he was a Cromwellite till the Restoration, 
when he began the changes which mark, his life. 
His poem on the Death of the Protector was soon 
followed by the Astrcea Redux, which celebrated 
the return of Justice to the realm in the person of 
Charles II. The Annus Mirabilis appeared in 1667, 
and in this his great power was first clearly shown. 
It is the power of clear reasoning expressing itself 
with powerful and ardent ease in a rapid succession 
of condensed thoughts in verse. Such a power fitted 
Dryden for satire, and his Absalom and A/iitop/id, the 
second part of which was mostly written by Nahuin 
Tate, is the foremost of English satires. He had 
been a play writer till its appearance in 1681, and the 
rimed plays which he had written enabled him to per- 
fect the versification which is so remarkable in it and 
the poems that followed. The satire itself, written in 
mockery of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, 
attacked Shaftesbury as Ahitophel, was kind to Mon- 
mouth as Absalom, and in its sketch of Buckingham 
as Zimri the poet avenged himself for the Rehearsal. 
It was the first fine example of that party poetry which 
became still more bitter and personal in the hands of 
Pope. It was followed by the Medal, a new attack on 
Shaftesbury, and the Mac Fleeknoe, in which Shadwell, 
a rival j)oet, who had supported Shaftesbury's party, 
was made the witless successor of Richard Flecknoe, a 
poet of all kinds of poetry, and master of none. After 
these, Dryden embodied his theology in verse, and the 



I30 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

RellgLo Laui, 1682, defends, and states the argument 
for, the Church of England. It was perhaps poverty 
that drove him on the accession of James II. to 
change his rehgion, and the Hind cmd Fanther, 1687, 
is as tine a model of clear reasoning in behalf of 
the milk-white hind of the Church of Rome as the 
Religio Laid w^as in behalf of the Church of England, 
which now becomes the spotted panther. It produced 
in reply one of the happiest burlesques in English 
poetry, Tlie Country Mouse and the City Mouse, the 
work of Charles Montague (Lord Halifax), and 
Mat Prior. Deprived of his offices at the Revo- 
lution, Dryden turned again to the drama, but the 
failure of the last of his good plays in 1694, drove 
him again from the stage, and he give himself up 
to his Translation of Ven^il wiiich he finished in 1696. 
As a narrative poet his Fables and Translations, pro- 
duced late in life, in 1699, give him a high rank, 
though the fine harmony of their verse does not win 
us to forget their coarseness, nor their lack of that 
skill in arranging a story which comes from imagina- 
tive feeling. As a lyric poet his fame rests on the 
animated Ode for St. Cecilia's Day. His translation 
of Veigil has fire, but wants the dignity and tender- 
ness of the original. From Milton's death, 1674, till 
his own in 1700, Dryden reigned undisputed, and 
round his throne in Will's Coffeehouse, where he sat 
as "Glorious John," vre may place the names of the 
lesser poets, the Earls of Dorset, Roscommon, and 
Mulgrave, Sir Charles Sedley, and the Earl of Roches- 
ter. The lighter poetry of the court lived on in the 
two last. John Oldham won a short fame by his 
Satires on the Jesuits, 1679 ; and Bishop Ken, 1668, set 
on foot, in his AIo?'ni?ig and Evening Hymns, a new 
type of religious poetry. 

T06. Prose Literature of the Restoration 
and Revolution. Science. — During the Civil War 
the religious and political struggle absorbed the 



VI.] RESTORATION TO DEATH OF I ORE. 131 

country, but yet, apart from the strife, a few men who 
cared for scientific matters met at one another's houses. 
Out of this Httle knot, after the Restoration, arose the 
Royal Society, embodied in 1662. Astronomy, ex- 
permiental chemistry, medicine, mineralogy, zoology, 
botany, vegetable physiology were all founded as 
studies, and their literature begun in the age of the 
Restoration. One man's work was so great in science 
as to merit his name being mentioned among the 
literary men of England. In 167 1 Isaac Newton 
laid his Theory of Light before the Royal Society ; 
in the year before the Revolution his Principia estab- 
lished with its proof of the theory of gravitation the 
true system of the universe. 

It was in political and religious knowledge, however, 
that the intellectual inquiry of the nation was most 
shown. When the thinking spirit succeeds the active 
and adventurous in a people, one of the first things 
they will think upon is the true method and grounds 
of government, both divine and human. 'J^vo sides 
will be taken : the side of authority and the side of 
reason in Religion ; the sine of authority and the 
side of individual liberty in Politics. 

107. The Theological Literature of those who 
declared that reason was supreme as a test of truth, 
arose with some men who met at Lord Falkland's 
just before the Civil War, and especially with John 
Hales and William Chiliingworth. The spirit which 
animated these men filled also Jeremy Taylor, and 
Milton continued their Hberal movement beyond the 
Restoration. The same kind of work, though modified 
towards moresedatenessof expression, andless rational- 
istic, was now donebyArchbishopLillotson, and Bishop 
Burnet. In 1678, Cud worth's Ifiidlcctual System of the 
Ufiiverse is perhaps the best book on the controversy 
which then took form against those who were called 
Atheists. A number of divines in the English Church 
took sides for Autliority or Reason, or opposed the 
13 



132 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

growing Deism during the latter half of the seventeenth 
century. It was an age of preachers, and Isaac Barrow, 
Newton's predecessor in the chair of mathematics at 
Cambridge, could preach, with grave and copious 
eloquence, for three hours at a time. Theological 
prose was strengthened by the publication of the 
sermons of Edward Stillingfleet and William Sherlock, 
and Sherlock's adversary, Robert South, was as witty 
in rhetoric as he was fierce in controversy. 

io8. Political Literature. — The resistance to 
authority in the opposition to the theory of the Divine 
Right of Kings did not enter into literature till after 
it had been worked out practically in the Civil War. 
Daring the Commonwealth and after the Restoration it 
took the form of a discussion on the abstract question 
of the Science of Government, and was mingled with 
an inquiry into the origin of society and the ground of 
social life. Milton's papers on the Divorce' Question 
and his little tractate on Education were bold attempts 
to solve social questions, and his political tracts after 
the death of Cromwell, thoug'h directed to the ques- 
tions of Church and State which were burning then, 
have a bearing beyond their time. But Thomas 
HoBBES, during the Commonwealth, was the first 
who dealt with the question from the side of abstract 
reason, and he is also the first of all our prose writers 
whose style may be said to be uniform and correct, 
and adapted carefully to the subjects on which he 
wrote. His treatise, the Leviathan^ 1651, declared 
(i) that the origin of all power was in the people, and 
(2) the end of all power was for the common weal. It 
destroyed the theory of a Divine Right of Kings and 
Priests, but it created another kind of Divine Right 
when it said that the power lodged in rulers by the 
people could not be taken away by the people. Sir 
R. Filmer supported the side of Divine Right in his 
Pafriarcha, published 1680. Henry Nevile, in his 
Dialogue concerning Goverm7iejtt, and James Har- 



VI.] KESTORATION TO DEATH OF TOPE. 133 

rington in his romance, The Commonwealth of Oceana^ 
published at the beginning of the Commonwealth, 
contended that all secure government was to be based 
on property, but Nevile supported a monarchy, and 
Harrington — with whom I may class Algernon Sidney, 
whose political treatise on government is as states- 
manlike as it is finely written — a democracy, on this 
basis. I may here mention that it was during this 
period, in 1O67, that the first effort was made after a 
Science of Political Economy by Sir William Petty in 
his Treatise on Taxes. 

109, John Locke, after the Revolution, in 16S9- 
1690, followed the two doctrines of Hobbes in his 
treatise on Civil Governmetit, but with these important 
additions— (i) that the people have a right to take 
away the power" given by them to the ruler, (2) that 
the ruler is responsible to the people for the trust 
reposed in him, and (3) that legislative assemblies 
are Supreme as the voice of the peoi)le. This was 
the political philosophy of the Revolution. Locke 
carried the same spirit of free inquuy into the realm 
of religion, and in his three Letters on Toleratiofi, 
1689-90-92, laid down the philosopliical grounds for 
liberty of religious thought. He finished by entering 
the realm of metaphysical inquiry. In 1690 appeared 
his Essay concerning tiie Nionan Understandings in 
which he investigated its limits, and traced all ideas, 
and therefore all knowledge, to experience. In his 
clear statement of the way in which the Under- 
standing works, in the way in which he guarded it 
and Language against their errors in the inquiry after 
truth, he did as much for the true method of thinking 
as Bacon had do'ne for the Science of nature. 

no. The intellectual stir of the time produced, 
apart from the great movement of thougjht, a good 
deal 01 Miscellaneous Literature. The painting 
of short " characters " was carried on after the Resto- 
ration by Samuel Butler and W. Charleton. These 



134 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

''characters " had no personality, but as party spirit 
deepened, names thinly disguised were given to 
characters drawn of Uving men, and Dryden and Pope 
in poetry and all the prose wits of the time of Queen 
Anne and George I. made personal and often violent 
sketches of their opponents a special element in litera- 
ture. On the other hand, Izaak Walton's Lives, in 1670, 
are examples of kindly, pleasant, and careful ^/i:?^v'^/'//>'. 
Cowley's small volume, written shortly before his death 
in 1667, and Dryden, in the masterly criticisms on his art 
which he prefixed to some of his dramas, gave richness 
to the Essay, These two writers began — with Hobbes 
— the second period of English prose, in which the 
style is easy, unaffected, moulded to the subject, and 
the proper words are put in their proper places. It is 
as different from the style that came before it as the 
easy manners of a gentleman are from those of a 
learned man unaccustomed to society. In William 1 1 1. 's 
time Sir VV. Temple's pleasant Essays bring us in style 
and tone nearer to the great class of essayists of whom 
Addison was chief. Lady Rachel Russell's Letters 
begin the Letter-ivnting Literature of England. Pepys 
(1660-69) and Evelyn, whose Diary grows full after 
1640, begin that class of gossiping Mejnoirs which have 
been of so much use in giving colour to history. History 
itself at this time is little better than memoirs, and 
such a name may be fairly given to Clarendon's History 
of the Civil PVars (begun in 1641) and to Bishop 
Burnet's History of his Own Time, and to his History 
of the Reformation (begun in 1679, completed in 17 15). 
Finally Classical Criticism, in the discussion on the 
genuineness of the Letters of Phalaris, was created 
by Richard Bentley in 1697-99. Literature was 
therefore plentiful. It was also correct, but it was not 
inventive. 

III. The Literature of Queen Anne and 
the first Georges. — With the closing years of 
William III. and the accession of Queen Anne (1702) 



VI.] RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE. 135 

a literature arose wliich was partly new and partly a 
continuance of that of the Restoration. The conflict 
between those who took the oath to the new dynasty 
and the Nonjurors who refused, the hot blood that it 
produced, the war between Dissent and Church, and 
between the two parties which now took the names of 
Whig and Tory, produced a mass of political pamph- 
lets, of which Daniel Defoe's and Swift's were the 
best ; of songs and ballads, like Lillibullcro^ which 
were sung in every street ; of squibs, reviews, and 
satirical poems and letters. Every one joined in it, 
and it rose to importance in the work of the greater 
men who mingled literary studies with their politi- 
cal excitement. In politics all the abstract discus- 
sions we have mentioned ceased to be abstract, and 
became personal and practical, and the spirit of inquiry 
applied itself more closely to the questions of every- 
day life. The whole of this stirring literary life was 
concentrated in London, where the agitation of society 
was hottest ; and it is round this vivid city life that the 
Literature of Queen Anne and the two following reigns 
is best grouped. 

112. It was, with a few exceptions, a Party 
Literature. 'i1ie Whig and Tory leaders enlisted 
on their sides the best poets and prose-writers, who 
fiercely satirised and unduly praised them under 
names thinly disguised. Our "Augustan Age" was 
an age of unbridled slander. Personalities were sent 
to and fro like shots in batde. Those who could do 
this work well were well rewarded, but the rank and 
file of writers were left to starve. Literature was thus 
honoured not for itself, but for the sake of i)ariy. 
The result was that the abler men lowered it by 
making it a political tool, and the smaller men, the 
fry of Grub Street, degraded it by using it in the same 
way, only in a baser manner. Their flattery was as 
abject as their abuse was shameless, and both were 
stupid. They received and deserved the merciless 



136 E>JGL1SH LITERATURE. [chap. 

lashing which Pope was soon to give them in the 
DiiJiciad. Being a party literature, it naturally came 
to study and to look sharply into human character 
and into human life as seen in the great city. It 
debated subjects of literary and scientific inquiry and 
of philosophy with great ability, but without depth. 
It discussed all the varieties of social life, and painted 
town society more vividly than has been done before 
or since ; and it was so wholly taken up with this, that 
country life and its interests, except in the writings of 
Addison, were scarcely touched by it at all. Criticism 
being so active, the form in which thought was ex- 
pressed was now especially dwelt on, and the result 
was that the style of English prose became for the 
first time absolutely simple and clear, and Enghsh 
verse reached a neatness of expression and a close- 
ness of thought which was as exquisite as it was 
artificial. At the same time, and for the same 
reasons. Nature, Passion, and Imagination decayed 
in poetry. 

113. Alexander Pope absorbed and reflected all 
these elements. Born in 1688, he wrote tolerable verse 
at twelve years old ; the Pastorals appeared in 1709, 
and two years afterwards he took full rank as the 
critical poet in the Essay on Criticism (17 u). The 
next year saw the first cast of his Rape of the Lock, 
the most brilliant occasional poem in our language. 
This closed what we may call his first period. In 
1 7 13, when he published Windsor Forest, he became 
known to Swift and to Henry St. John, Lord Boling- 
broke. When these, with Gay, Parnell, Prior, Ar- 
buthnot, and others, formed the Scriblerus Club, Pope 
joined them, and soon rose into great fame by his 
Translation of the Iliad (1715-1720), and by the 
Translation of the Odyssey (1723-25), in which he 
was assisted by Fenton and Broome. Being now at 
ease, f jr he received more than 8,000/. for this work, 
he published from his retreat at Twickenham, and in 



VI.] KES'rOKA770N TO DEATH OF POPE. 137 

bitter scorn of the poetasters and of all the petty- 
scribblers who annoyed him, the Duticiad, 1728. 
Its original hero was Lewis Theobald, but when the 
fourth book was published, under Warburton's influ- 
ence, in 1742, Colley Cibber was enthroned as the 
King of Dunces instead of Theobald. The fiercest 
and finest of Pope's satires, it closes his second period 
^hich breathes the savageness of Swift. The thiid 
|)hase of Pope's literary life was closely linked to his 
friend Bolingbroke. It was in conversation with him 
that he originated the Essay on Man (1732-4) and the 
Imitations of Horace. The Moral Essays^ or Epistles 
to men and women, were written to praise those whom 
he loved, and to satirise the bad poets and the social 
follies of the day, and all who disliked him or his 
party. In the last few years of his life, Bishop War- 
burton, the writer of the Le^^ation of Moses and editor 
of Shakspere, helped him to fit the Moral Essays into 
the plan of which the Essay on Man formed part. 
Warburton was Pope's last great friend ; but almost 
his only old friend. By 1740 nearly all the members 
of his literary circle were dead, and a new race of 
poets and writers had grown up. In 1744 he died. 
'I'he masterly form into which he threw the philosophical 
principles he condensed into didactic poetry make them 
more impressive than they have a right to be. The 
Essay on Man, though its philosophy is poor and not 
his own, is crowded with lines that have passed into 
daily use. The Essay on Criticism is ec^ually full of 
critical precepts put with exquisite skill. The Satires 
and Epistles are didactic, but their excellence is 
in the terse and finished types of character, in the 
almost creative drawing of which Pope remains unri- 
valled, eveT\ by Dryden. His translation of Homer 
is made with great literary art, but for that very reason 
it does not make us feel the simplicity and chrectness 
of Homer. It has neither the manner of Homer, nor 
the spirit of the Greek life, just as Pope's descriptions 



138 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap, 

of nature have neither the manner nor the spirit of 
nature. The heroic couplet^ in which he wrote nearly 
all his work, he used with a correctness that has never 
been surpassed, but its smooth perfection, at length, 
wearies the ear. It wants the breaks that passion 
and imagination naturally make. Finally, he was a 
true artist, hating those who degraded his art, and at 
a time when men followed it for money, and place, 
and the applause of the club and of the town, he loved 
it faithfully to the end, for its own sake. 

114. The Minor Poets who surrounded Pope in 
the first two-thirds of his life did not approach his 
genius. Richard Blackmore endeavoured to restore 
the epic in his Prince Arthur, 1695, and Samuel 
Garth's mock heroic poem of the Dispensary appeared 
along with John Pomfret's poems in 1699. In 170 1, 
Defoe's lYueborn Englishman defended William 111. 
against those who said he was a foreigner, and Prior's 
finest ode the Car?nen Seculare, took up the same cause. 
John Philips is known by his Miltonic burlesque of 
the Splendid Shilling, and his Cyder was a Georgic of 
the apple. Matthew Green's Spleen and Ambrose 
Philip's Pastorals were contemporary with Pope's first 
poetry ; and Gay's Shepherd's Week, six pastorals, 17 14, 
were as lightly wrought as his Fables. The political 
satires of Swift were coarse, but always hit home. Ad- 
dison celebrated the Battle of Blenheim in the Cam- 
paign, and his sweet grace is found in some devotional 
pieces ; while Prior's charming ease is best shown in 
the light narrative poetry which we may say began with 
him in the reign of William III. In Pope's later life 
an entirely new impulse came upon poetry, and 
changed it root and branch. It arose in Ramsay's 
Gentle Shepherd, 1725, and in Thomson's Seasons, 
1730, and it rang the knell of the manner and the 
spuit of the critical school. 

115. The Prose Literature of Pope's time col- 
lects itself round four great names. Swift, Defoe, 



VI.] KESrORATION TO DEATH OF POPE. 139 

Addison, and Bishop Berkeley, and ihey all exhibit 
those elements of the age of which 1 have spoken. 
Jonathan Swift was the keenest of political parti- 
zans. The Battle of the Books, or the literary fight 
about the Letters of Phalaris, and the Ta/e of a Tub, 
a satire on the Presbyterians and the Pai)ists, made 
his reputation in 1704 and established him as a satirist. 
Swift left the Whig for the Tory party, and his political 
tracts brought him court favour and literary fame. 
On the fall of the Tory party at the accession of 
George I., he retired to the Deanery of St. Patrick in 
Ireland an embittered man, and the Drapier' s Letters 
(1724) written against Wood's halfpence, gained him 
popularity in a country that he hated. In 1726, his 
mventive genius, his savage satire, and his cruel indig- 
nation with life, were all shown in Gulliver's Travels. 
The voyage to Lilliput and Brobdingnag satirised the 
politics and manners of England and Europe; that 
to Laputa mocked the pliilosophers ; and the last, to 
the country of the Houyhnhnms, lacerated and defiled 
the whole body of humanity. No English is more 
robust than Swift's, no wit more gross, no life in 
private and public more sad and proud, no death 
more pitiable. He died in 1745 hopelessly insane. 
Daniel Defoe was almost as vigorous a political 
writer as Swift. His vein as a pamphleteer seems to 
have been inexhaustible, and the style of his tracts 
was as roughly persuasive as it was popular. Above 
all he was the journalist. His Reineiv, published 
twice a week for a year, was wholly written by him- 
self; but he ''founded, conducted, and wrote for a 
host of other newspapers," and filled them with every 
subject of the day. His tales grew out of matters 
trea;ed of in his journals, and his best art lay in the 
way he built up these stories out of mere suggestions. 
** The little art he is truly master of, said one of his 
contemporaries, is of forging a story and imposing it 
on the world for truth." His circumstantial inven- 



I40 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

tion, combined with a style which exactly fits it by its 
simplicity, is the root of the charm of the great story 
by which he chiefly lives • in literature. Robinson 
Crusoe, 17 19, equalled Gulliver's Travels in truthful 
representation, and excelled them in invention. The 
story lives and charms from day to day. With his 
other tales it makes him our first true writer of fiction. 
But none of his stories are real novels ; that is, they 
have no plot to the working out of which the cha- 
racters and the events contribute. They form the 
transition however from the slight tale and the 
romance of the Elizabethan time to the finished novel 
of Richardson and Fielding. 

116. Metaphysical Literature, which drifted 
chiefly into theology, was enriched by the work 
of Bishop Berkeley. His Miiiute Philosopher 
and other woiks questioned the real existence of 
matter, and founded on the denial of it an answer to 
the English Deists, round whom in the first half of 
the eighteenth century centred the struggle between 
the claims of natural and revealed religion. Shaftes- 
bury, Bolingbroke, and Wollaston, Tindal, Toland, and 
Collins, on the Deists' si(1e, were opposed by Clarke, 
by Bentley, whose name is best known as the founder 
of the true school of classical criticism, by Bishop 
Butler, and by Bishop Warburton. Bishop Butler's 
acute and solid reasoning treated in his Sermons the 
subject of Morals, inquiring what was the particular 
nature of man, and hence determining the course of 
life correspondent to this nature. His Analogy oj 
Religion, Natural a?id Revealed, to the Constitution and 
Course of Nature, 1736, endeavours to make peace 
between authority and reason, and has become a 
standard book. I may mention here a social satire, 
The Fable of the Bees, by Mandeville, half poem, half 
prose dialogue, and finished in 1729. It tried to 
prove that the vices of society are the foundation 
of civilisation, and is the first of a new set of books 



V r . ] J^ES TOR A TION TO DEA Til OF PO PE. 141 

which marked the rise in England of the bold 
speculations on the nature and ground of society 
to which the French Revolution gave afterwards so 
great an impulse. 

117. The Periodical Essay is connected with 
the names of Joseph Addison and Sir Richard 
Steele. This gay, light, and graceful kind of litera- 
ture, differing from such Essays as Bacon's as good 
conversation about a subject differs from a clear 
analysis of all its pomts, was begun in France 
by Montaigne in 1580. Charles Cotton, a wit of 
Charles II. 's time, retranslated Montaigne's Essays^ 
and they soon found imitators in Cowley and Sir W. 
Temple. But the periodical Essay was created by Steele 
and Addison. It was at first published three times a 
week, then daily, and it was anonymous, and both 
these characters njcessarily changed its form from 
that of an Essay of Montaigne. Steele began it in 
the Tatler, 1709, and it treated of everything that was 
going on in the world. He points as a social humourist 
the whole age of Queen Anne — the political and 
literary disputes, the fine gentlemen and ladies, the 
characters of men, the humours of society, the new 
book, the new play ; we live in the very streets and 
drawing-rooms of old London. Addison soon joined 
him, first in the Tatler, afterwards in the Spectator^ 
1 7 1 1. His work is more critical, literary, and didactic 
than his companion's. The characters he introduces, 
such as Sir Roger de Coverley, are finished studies after 
nature, and their talk is easy and dramatic. No 
humour is more fine and tender; and, like Chaucer's, 
it is never bitter. The style adds to the charm : in its 
varied cadence and subtle easj it has not been sur- 
passed within its own peculiar sphere in England ; and 
it seems to grow out of the subjects treated of. Addi- 
son's work was a great one, lightly done. The Specta- 
tor, the Guardian^ and tlie Freeholder^ in his hands, 
gave a better tone to manners, and hence to morals, 



142 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

and a gentler one to political and literary criticism. 
The essays published every Friday were chiefly on 
literary subjects, the Saturday essays chiefly on religious 
subjects. The former popularised literature, so that 
culture spread among the middle classes. and crept 
down to the country ; the latter popularised religion. 
" I have brought," he says, " philosophy out of closets 
and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs 
and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses." 

THE DRAMA FROM THE RESTORATION TO 1780. 

118. The Drama after the Restoration took the 
tone of the court both in politics and religion, but its 
partizanship decayed under William III., and died in 
the reign of Queen Anne. The court of Charles II., 
which the plays now written represented much more 
than they did the national life, gave the drama the 
"genteel " ease and the immorality of its society, and 
encouraged it to find new impulses from the tragedy 
and comedy of Spain and of France. The French 
romances of the school of Calprenede and Scudery 
furnished plots to the play-writers. The great French 
dramatists, Corneille, Racine, and Moliere were 
translated and borrowed from again and again. The 
" three unities " of Corneille, and rime instead of 
blank verse as the vehicle of tragedy, were adopted, but 
"the spirit of neither the serious nor the comic drama 
of France could then be transplanted into England." 

Two acting companies were formed on Charles II. 's 
return, under Thomas KilHgrew and D'Avenant ; 
actresses came on the stage for the first time, the 
ballet was introduced, and scenery began to be largely 
used, r^ryden, whose masterly force was sure to strike 
the key-note that others followed, began his comedies 
in 1663, but soon afterwards, following Robert Boyle, 
Earl of Orrery, who was the father of the heroic drama, 
turned to tragedy in the Indian Queen, 1664. His 



VI.] RESTORATION TO DEATH OF POPE. 143 

next play, the Indian Emperour, established for a time 
the heroic couplet as the tlramatic verse. His defence 
of rime in tlie Essay on Dramatic Poesy asserted the 
originality of the English scliool, and denied that it 
followed the French. The masterpiece of the Conquest 
of Granada was followed by the biirles(iue of the J^e- 
iicarsai, written by the Duke of Buckingham, in which 
the bombastic extravagance of the heroic plays was 
ridiculed. Dryden now changed his dramatic manner, 
and, following Shakspere, "disencumbered himself from 
rime" in his fine tragedy oi All for Love, and showed 
his power of low comedy in the Spanish Eriar. After 
the Revolution, his tragedy of Don Sebastian ranks 
high, but not higher than his brilliantly-written comedy 
of Amphitryon, 1690. Dryden is the representative 
dramatist of the Restoration. Among the tragedians 
who followed his method and possessed their own, 
those most worthy of notice are Nat Lee (1650-90), 
whose Rival Queens, 1667, deserves its praise ; Thomas 
Otway, whose two pathetic tragedies, the Orphan and 
Venice Preserved, still keep the stage ; and Thomas 
Southerne whose Eatal Marriage, 1694, was revived 
by Garrick. 

It was in comedy, however, that the dramatists 
excelled. Etherege, Sedley, Mrs. Behn, Lacy, and 
Shad well carry on to the Revolution that light Comedy 
of Manners which William Wycherley's (1640-17 15) 
gross vigour and natural plots lifted into an odious 
excellence in such plays as the Country Wife and the 
Flain Dealer, Three great comedians followed 
Wycherley — William Congreve (1672-1728), whose 
well-bred ease is almost as remarkable as his bril- 
liant wit; Sir John Vanbrugh (i666(?)-i726), and 
George Farquhar (1678-1707), both of whom have 
quick invention, but the gaiety and ease of Van- 
brugh is superior to that of Farquhar. The in- 
decency of all these writers is infamous, but it is 
partly forgotten in their swift and sustained vivacity. 

10* 13 



144 ENGLISH L ITER A TURE. [chap. 

This immorality produced Jeremy Collier's famous 
attack on the stage, 1698; and the growth of a 
higher tone in society, uniting with this attack, 
began to purify the drama, though Mrs. Centlivre's 
comedies, during the reign of Queen Anne, show 
no trace of purity. Steele, at this time, whose 
Lying Lover makes him the father of sentimental 
comedy^ wrote all his plays with a moral purpose. 
Nicholas Rowe, whose melancholy tragedies "are 
occupied with themes of heroic love," is dull, but 
never gross ; while Addison's ponderous tragedy of Cato, 
17 13, praised by Voltaire as the first tragcdie raison- 
nable, in its total rejection of the drama of nature 
for the classical style, ''definitely marks an epoch in 
the history of English tragedy, an epoch of decay, on 
which no recovery has followed." Comedy, however, 
had still a future. The Beggars' Opera of Gay, 1728, 
revived an old form of drama in a new way. CoUey 
Cibber carried on into George II. 's time the light and 
the sentimental comedy ; Fielding made the stage the 
vehicle of criticism on the follies, literature, and politics 
of his time ; and Foote and Garrick did the same kind 
of work in their farces. 

The influence of the Restoration drama continues, 
past this period, in the manner of Goldsmith and 
Sheridan who wrote between 1768 and 1778; but 
the exquisite humour of Goldsmith's Goodnatured 
Man and She Stoops to Conquer, and the wit, almost 
as brilliant and more epigranimatic than Congreve's, 
of Sheridan's Rivals and the School for Scandal, are 
not deformed by the indecency of the Restoration. 
Both were Irishmen, but Goldsmith has more of the 
Celtic grace and Sheridan of the Celtic wit. The 
sentimental comedy was carried on into the next age 
by Macklin, Murphy, Cumberland, the Colmans, and 
many others, but we may say that with Sheridan the 
history of the elder English Drama closes. That 
which belongs to our century is a different thing. 



vil.l FROSE LITERArUKE FROM 110,^10 \i'i>% 145 



CHAPTER VII. 

r.iUSK IJTKRATURE KROM THE DEATH OP^ POPE AND 
OF SWIFT TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND FROM 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO DEATH OF SCOTT. 

1745-1832. 

Richardson's Famehi, 1740- — Fielding's Joseph Andrews^ 
1742- — Smollett's Rod:>ick Random and Richardson's 
Clirissa J/arLnuc, 1748.— Fielding's T^c^w Jones, YJ^^.— 
Johnson's Diction.iry, 1755. — Sterne's Trislrani Shandy, 
1759- — Hume's History of England, completed 1761 — 
Goldsmith's Vicar- of Wakefield, 1766. — Adam Smith's 
Wealth of Nations, 1776- —Gibbon's Decline and Fa' I of the 
Roman Empire, completed 1788 — Boswell's Life of Johnson, 
179[. — Burke's Writinos, from 1756-1797- —Miss Austen's 
Novels, 1811-1817.— Scott's yV(/z/^/^, 18141831. 

119. Prose Literature. — The rapid increase of 
manufactures, science, and prosperity which began 
with the middle of the eighteenth century is paral- 
leled by the growth of Literature. The general causes 
of this growth were — 

ist, That a good prose style had been per- 
fected, and the method of writing being made easy, 
production increased. Men were born, as it were, 
into a good school of the art of composition. 

2ndly, The long peace after the accession of the 
House of Hanover had left England at rest, and 
given it wealth. The reclaiming ot waste tracts, the 
increased wealth and trade, made better communica- 
tion necessary ; and the country was soon covered with 
a network of highways. The leisure gave time to 
men to think and write : the quicker interchange 
between the capital and the country spread over 
England the literature of the capital, and stirred men 



146 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

everywhere to express his thoughts. The coaching 
services and the post carried the new book and the 
literary criticism to the villages, and awoke the men 
of genius there, who might otherwise have been silent. 

3rdly, The Press sent far and wide the news of 
the day, and grew in importance till it contained the 
opinions and writings of men like Johnson. Such seed 
produced literary work in the country. Newspapers 
now began to play a larger part in literature. They 
rose under the Commonwealth, but became important 
when the censorship which reduced them to a mere 
broadsheet of news was removed after the Revolution 
of 1688. The political sleep of the age of the two 
first Georges hindered their progress ; but in the reign 
of George III., after a struggle with which the name of 
John Wilkes and the author of the Letters of Jimius are 
connected, and which lasted from 1764 to 177 1, the 
press claimed and obtained the right to criticise the 
conduct and measures of Ministers and Parliament 
and the King ; and the further right to publish and 
comment on the debates in the two Houses. 

4thly, Communication with the Continent 
had increased during the peaceable times of Walpole, 
and the wars that followed made it still easier. With 
its increase two new and great outbursts of literature 
told upon England. France sent the works of Montes- 
quieu, of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert, 
and the rest of the liberal thinkers who were called 
the Encyclopaedists, to influence and quicken English 
literature on all the great subjects that belong to the 
social and political life of man. Afterwards, the fresh 
German movement, led by Lessing and others, and 
carried on by Goethe and Schiller, added its impulse 
to the poetical school that arose in England along 
with the French Revolution. These were the general 
causes of the rapid growth of literature from the time 
of the death of Swift and Pope. 

1 20. Prose Literature between 1745 and the 



VII.] PROSE LITER A TURE FROM 1745 TO 17S9. 147 

French Revolution may be said to be bound up with 
the Hterary Hves of one man and his friends. Samuel 
Johnson, born in 1709, and whose first prose work, 
xhe Lije of ^iwage, appeared in 1744, was the last 
representative of the hterary king, who, hke Drydcn 
and Pope, held a court in London. Poor and 
unknown, he worked his way to fame, and his first 
poem, the London^ 1738, satirized the town where 
he loved to live. He carried on the periodical 
essays in the Rambler and Jdler, 1750-52, but in 
them grace and lightness, the essence of this kind 
of essay, were lost. Several other series followed 
and ceased in 1787, but the only one worth read- 
ing, for its fanciful stories and agreeable satire of 
the manners of the time, is Goldsmith's Citizen of 
the Woriii. Driven by poverty, Johnson under- 
took a greater work ; the Dictionary of tJie Ejiglish 
Language, 1755 — and his celebrated letter to Lord 
Chesterfield concerning its publication, gave the 
death-blow to patronage, and makes Johnson the 
first of the modern literary men who, independent 
of patrons, live by their pen and find in the public 
their only paymaster. He represents thus a new class. 
In i75g he set on foot the Didactic Novel in Rassdas, 
and in 1781 his Lives of the L^oets lifted Biograpliy into 
a hijiher [>lace in literature. But he did even more 
for literature as a converser, as the chief talker of a 
literary club, than by writing, and we know exactly 
what a power he was by the vivid Biography^ the best 
in our language, which James Boswell, with fussy de- 
votedness, made of his master in 1791. Side by side 
Vkiih Johnson stands Oliver Goldsmith, whose graceful 
and pure English is a pleasant contrast to the loaded 
Latinism of Johnson's style. The Vicar of Wakefield, 
the History of Animated Nature are at one in charm, 
and the latter is full of that love of natural scenery, the 
sentiment of which is absent from Johnson's y^'/z/v/n' 
to the Western Isles. Both these men were masters of 



148 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Miscellaneous Literature, and in that class, I mention 
here, as belonging to the latter half of the eighteenth 
century, Edmund Burke's Vindication of Natural 
Society, a parody of Bolingbroke ; and his Iiiquiry into 
the Origin of our Ideas of the Siiblijne and JBeautiful, 
a book which in 1757 introduced him to Johnson. 
Nor ought we to forget Sir Joshua Reynolds, another 
of Johnson's friends, who first made English Art 
literary in his Discourses on Painting ; nor Plorace 
Walpole, whose Anecdotes of Painting, 1761, still 
please ; and whose familiar Lettej's, malicious, light as 
froth, but amusing, retail with liveliness all the gossip 
of the time. 

121. The Novel. — "There is more knowledge of 
the heart," said Johnson, " in one letter of Richard- 
son's than in all Tom /ones" and the saying introduces 
Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding, the 
makers of the Modern Novel. Wholly distinct from 
merely narrative stories like Defoe's, the true novel is a 
story wrought round the passion of love to a tragic or 
joyous conclusion. Its form, far more flexible than 
that of the drama, admits of almost infinite develop- 
ment. The whole of human life, at any time, at any 
place in the world, is its subject, and its vast sphere 
accounts for its vast production. Pa?nela, 1740, ap- 
peared while Pope was yet alive, and was the first of 
Richardson's novels. Like Clarissa Ha7'Io'ioe, 1748, 
it was written in the form of letters. The third of these 
books was Sir Charles Grandison. They are novels of 
Sentiment, and their purposeful morality and religion 
mark the change which had taken place in the morals 
and faith of literature since the preceding age. 

Clarissa Harlowe is a masterpiece. Richardson 
himself is mastered day by day by the passionate 
creation of his characters ; and their variety and the 
variety of their passions are drawn with a slow, 
diffusive, elaborate intensity which penetrates into 
the subtlest windings of the human heart. But all 



VII.] PROSE LITERATURE FROM i-j^^ TO ii'ii). 149 

the characters are groui)ed round and enlighten 
Clarissa, the pure and ideal star of womanliood. 
The pathos of the book, its sincerity, its minute 
reality have always, but slowly, impassioned its 
readers, and it stirred as absorbing an interest in 
France as it did in England. " '1 ake care," said 
Diderot, " not to open these enchanting books, 
if you have any duties to fulfil." Henry Fielding 
followed Pamela with Joseph Andrews^ 1742, and 
Clarissa with Tom Jones, 1749. At the same time, 
in 1748, appeared Tobias Smollett's first novel, 
Roderick Random. Both wrote many other stories, 
but in the natural growth and development of 
the story, and in the infitting of the characters and 
events towards the conclusion, Tom Jones is the 
English model of the novel. The constructive power 
of Fielding is absent from Smollett, but in mere 
inventive tale-telling and in cynical characterisation, 
he is not easily equalled. Fielding draws English life 
both in town and country with a coarse and realistic 
pencil : Smollett is led beyond the truth of nature 
into caricature. Ten years had thus sufficed to 
create a wholly new literature. 

Laurence Sterne published the first part of Tris- 
tram Sha?idy in the same year as Rasselas, 1759. 
Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey are 
scarcely novels. They have no plot, they can scarcely 
be said to have any story. The story of Tristram 
Shandy wanders like a man in a labyrinth, and the 
humour is as labyrinthine as the story. Its humourous 
note is very remote and subtle ; and the sentiment 
is sometimes true, but mostly affected. But a certain 
unity is given to the book by the admirable consist- 
ency of the characters. A little later, in 1766, Gold- 
smith's Vicar of Wakefield was the first, and perhaps 
the most charming, of all those novels which we may 
call idyllic, which describe in a pure and gentle style 
the simple loves and lives of country people. Lastly, 



I50 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

but still in the same circle of Johnson's friends, Miss 
Burney's Evelina, 1778, and her Cecilia^ in which we 
detect Johnson's Roman hand, were the first novels of 
society. 

122. History shared in the progress made after 1745 
in prose writing, and was raised into the rank of liter- 
ature by three of Johnson's contemporaries. All of them 
were influenced by the French school, by Montesquieu 
and Voltaire. David Hume's History of Ejigiand, 
finished in 1761, is, in the writer's endeavour to make 
it a philosophic whole, in its clearness of narrative 
and purity of style, our first literary history. But he is 
neither exact, nor does he care to be exact. He does 
not love his subject, and he wants sympathy with 
mankind and with his country. His manner is the man- 
ner of Voltaire, passionless, keen, and elegant. Dr. 
Robertson, Hume's friend, and also a Scotchman, 
was a careful and serious, but also a cold writer. His 
Histories of Scotland, of Charles V., and of America 
show how historical interest again began to reach be- 
yond England. Their style is literary, but they fail in 
philosophical insight and in imagination. Edward 
Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall of the Roma?i Emfire, 
completed in 1788, gave a new impulse and a new 
model to historical literature, had no more sympathy 
with humanity than Hume, and his irony lowers through- 
out the human value of his history. But he had 
creative power, originality, and the imagination of his 
subject. It was at Rome in 1764, while musing amid 
the ruins of the Capitol, that the idea of writing his 
book started to his mind, and his conception of the 
work was that of an artist. Rome, eastern and 
western, was painted in the centre of the world, dying 
slowly like a lion. Around it and towards it he drew 
all the nations and hordes and faiths that wrought its 
ruin ; told their stories from the beginning, and the 
results on themselves and on the world of their vic- 
tories over Rome. This imaginative conception. 



VII.] PROSE LITER A TURE FROM 1 745 TO 1 7S9. 1 5 1 

together with the collecting and use of every detail of 
the arts and costumes and manners of the times he 
described, the reading and use of all the contemporary 
literature, the careful geographical detail, the marshal- 
ling of all this information with his facts, the power 
with which he moved over this vast arena, and the use 
of a full, but too grandiose a style, to give importance 
to the subject, makes him the one historian of the 
eighteenth century, whom modern research recognises 
as its master. Only in two chapters, the famous ones 
on Christianity, out of seventy-one, and during twenty- 
three years of work, does Gibbon yield to the prejudice 
which IS the common fault of historians. 

123. Philosophical and Political Literature. — 
Hume, following Locke, inquired into the nature of the 
human understanding, and based philosophy upon 
psychology. He constructed a science of man ; and 
tinally limited all our knowledge of reality to the 
world of phenomena revealed to us by experience. In 
morals he made utility the only measure of virtue. 
The first of his books, the Treatise of Human A^ature^ 
1739, was written in France, and was followed by the 
Fhilosophical Essays in 1748, and by the Ifiquiry 
Concerning the Principles of Morals in 175 1. The 
Dialogues on Natural Religion were not published till 
after his death. These were his chief ])hilosophical 
works. But in 1741-42, he published two volumes of 
Essays A/oral and Political, from which we might 
infer a political philosophy; and in 1752 the Political 
Discourses appeared, and they have been fairly said to 
be the cradle of political economy. But that subject 
was afterwards taken up by Adam Smith, a friend of 
Hume's, whose book on the Moral Sentiments, 1759, 
classes him also with the philosophers of Scotland. 
His IVealth of Nations, 1776, by its theory that labour 
is the source of wealth, and that to give the labourer 
absolute freedom to pursue his own interest in his own 
way is the best means of increasing the wealth of the 



152 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

country ; by its proof that all laws made to restrain, 
or to shape, or to promote commerce, were stumbling- 
blocks in the way of the wealth of a state, he created 
the Science of Political Economy, and started the 
theory and practice of Free Trade. All the questions 
of labour and capital were now placed on a scientific 
basis, and since that time the literature of the whole 
of the subject has engaged great thinkers. As the 
immense increase of the industry, wealth, and com- 
merce of the country from 1720 to 1770 had thus 
stirred inquiry into the laws which regulate wealth, so 
now the Methodist movement, beginning in 1738, 
awoke an interest m the poor, and gave the first 
impulse to popular education. Social Reform became 
a hterary subject, and fills a large space until 1832, 
when political reform brought forward new subjects, 
and the old subjects under new forms. This new 
philanthropy was stirred into further growth by the 
theories of the French Revolution, and these theories, 
taking violent effect in France, roused into opposition 
the genius of Edmund Burke. Unlike Hume, whose 
politics were elaborated in the study, Burke wrote 
his political tracts and speeches face to face with 
events and upon them. Philosophical reasoning 
and poetic passion were wedded together in them 
on the side of Conservatism, and every art of elo- 
quence was used with the mastery that imagination 
gives. In 1766 he defended Lord Rockingham's 
administration ; he was then wrongly suspected of the 
authorship of the Letteis of Junius, political invectives 
(1769-72), whose trenchant style has preserved them 
to this day. Burke's Thoughts o?i the Cause of the 
present Disconteuts, ^773? perhaps the best of his works 
in point of style, maintained an aristocratic govern- 
ment ; and the next year appeared his famous Speech 
on American Taxation, while that on American Con- 
ciliation, 1775, was answered by his friend Johnson in 
Taxation no Tyrafiny. The most powerful of his 



VII.] riWSE LITERA TURE FROM 17S9 TO 1S32. 153 

works were the Reflections on the French Revolution, 
1790, and the Littets on a Regicide Peace (1796-97). 
The first of these, answered by Thomas Paine's Rights 
of Man, and by James Mackintosh's Vindicice Galiica:, 
spread over all Kngland a terror of the principles of 
the Revolution ; the second doubled the eagerness of 
England to carry on the war with France. All his 
work is more literature than oratory. Many of his 
speeches enthralled their hearers, but many more put 
them to sleep. The very men, however, who slept 
under him in the House read over and over again the 
same speech when jjubiished with renewed delight. 
Goldsmith's praise of him— that he "wound himself 
into his subject like a serpent "• — gives the reason why 
he sometimes failed as an orator, why he always 
succeeded as a writer. 

124. Prcse from 1789-1832. Miscellaneous. 
— The death of Johnson marks a true j)eriotl in 
our later prose literature. London had ceased 
then to be the only literary centre. Books were 
produced in all parts of the country, and Edinburgh 
had its own famous school of literature. The doc- 
trines of the French Revolution were eaojerly sup- 
ported and eagerly opposed, and stirred like leaven 
through a great part of the literary work of England. 
Later on, through Coleridge, Scott, Carlyle, and 
others, the influence of Goethe and Schiller, of the 
new literature of Germany, began to tell upon us, in 
theology, in philosophy, and even in the novel. The 
great English Journals, the Morning Chronicle, the 
Times, the Morning Post, the Morning Herald, were 
all set on foot between 1775 and 1793, between 
the war with America and the war with France ; and 
when men like Coleridge and Canning began to write 
in them the literature of journalism was started. A 
Literature especially directed towards Education arose 
in the Cyc/o/^cedias, which began in 1778, am' 
rapidly developed into vast Dictionaries of kn' 



154 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

ledge. Along with them were the many series 
issued from Edinburgh and London of Popular 
Miscellanies. A crowd of literary men found employ- 
ment in writing about books rather than in writing 
them, and the Literature of Criticism became a 
power. The Edinburgh Review was established in 
1802, and the Qiiat'terly,\ts political opponent, in 1808, 
and these were soon followed by Frasers and Black- 
wood's Magazine. Jeffrey, Professor Wilson, Sydney 
Smith, and a host of others wrote in these on contem- 
porary events and books. Literest in contemporary 
stimulated interest in past literature, and Cole- 
ridge, Charles Lamb, Thomas Campbell, Hazlitt, 
Southey, and Savage Landor carried on that study of 
the Elizabethan and earlier poets to which Warton 
had given so much impulse in the eighteenth century. 
Literary quarrels concerning the schools of poetry 
produced books like Coleridge's Biographia Liieraria ; 
and Wordsworth's Essays on his own art are in admir- 
able prose. De Quincey, one of the Edinburgh school, 
is, owing to the peculiar and involved melody of his 
style, one of our first, as he is one of our most various 
miscellaneous writers : and with him for masculine 
English, for various learning and forcible fancy, and, 
not least, for his vigorous lyrical work and poems, we 
may rank Walter Savage Landor, who deepened an 
interest in English and classic literature. Charles 
Lamb's fineness of perception was shown in his criti- 
cisms on the old dramatists, but his most original work 
was the Essays of Elia^ in which he renewed the lost 
grace of the essay, and with a humour not less gentle, 
but more subtle than Addison's. 

125. Theological Literature had received a 
new impulse in 1738-91 from the evangelising work 
of John Wesley and Whitfield ; and their spiritual 
followers, John Scott, Newton, and Cecil, made by their 
waitings the Evangelical school. William Paley, in 
his Evidences, defended Christianity from the common- 



VII.] PKOSE LITER A TURK FROM i-j?,() TO 1832. 155 

sense point of view; while the sermons of Robert 
Hall and of Dr. Chalmers are, in different ways, fine 
examples of devotional and philosophical clocjuence. 

126. The elotjuent intelligence of Edinburgh con- 
tinued the Literature of Philosophy in the work 
of Dugald Stewart, Reids successor, and in that of 
Dr. Browne, who for the most part opposed Hume's 
fundamental idea that Psychology is a part of the 
Science of Life. Coleridge brought his own and the 
German philosophies into the treatment of theological 
questions in the Aids to Rcjlcctioji^ and into various 
subjects of life in the Friend. The utilitarian view of 
morals was put forth by Jeremy Lentham with great 
power, but his chief work was in the province of Law. 
He founded the Philosophy of Jurisprudence, he in- 
vented a scientific legal vocabulary, and we owe to 
him almost every reform that has improved our Law. 
He wrote also on political economy, but that subject 
was more fully developed by Malthus, Ricardo, and 
James Mill. 

127. Biography and travel are linked at many 
points to history, and the literature of the former was 
enriched by Hay ley's Coivper, Southey's Life of Nelson, 
McCrie's Life of L\nox, Moore's Life of Byron, and 
Lockhart's Life of Scott. As to travel, it has rarely 
produced books which may be called literature, but 
the works of biographers and travellers have brought 
together the materials of literature. Bruce left for 
Africa in 1762, and in the next seventy years Africa, 
Egypt, Italy, Greece, the Holy Land, and the Arctic 
Regions were made the common property of literary 
men. 

128. The Historical School produced Mitford's 
History of Greece, 18 10, and Lingard's History of Eng- 
iand, 18 19; but it was Henry Hallam who for the first 
time wrote history in this country without a grain of 
prejudice. His Emvpe diirini^ t/ie Middle Ages, 18 18, 
is distinguished by its exhaustive and judicial summing- 

U 



156 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

up of facts, and his Constitutional History of England 
set on foot a new kind of history in the best way. 
Since his time, impelled by Macaulay, Dean Milman, 
and others, history has become more and more worthy 
of the name of fine literature, and the critical schools 
of our own day, while making truth the first thing, and 
the philosophy of history the second, do not disdain 
but exact the graces of literature. But of all the 
forms of prose literature, the novel was the most 
largely used and developed. 

129. The Novel. — The stir of thought made by 
the French Revolution had many side influences on 
novel-writing. The political stories of Thomas Holcroft 
and William Godwin opened a new realm to the 
novelist. The Canterbury Tales of Sophia and 
Harriet Lee, and the wild and picturesque tales of 
Mrs. Radcliffe introduced the Romantic Novel. Mrs. 
Inchbald's Simple Stofy, 1791, started the novel of 
Passion, while Mrs. Opie made domestic life the 
sphere of her graceful and pathetic stories, 1806. 
Miss Edgeworth in her Irish stories gave the first 
impulse to the novel of national character, and in 
her other tales to the novel with a moral purpose, 
1801-11. Miss Austen, "with an exquisite touch 
which renders commonplace things and characters 
interesting from truth of description and sentiment," 
produced the best novels we have of everyday society, 
iSii-jy. With the peace of 1815 arose new forms of 
fiction ; and travel, now popular,' gave birth to the tale 
of foreign society and manners ; of these, Thomas 
Hope's Anastasius (181 9) was the first. The Classical 
Novel arose in Lockhart's Valerius^ and Miss Terrier's 
humorous tales of Scottish life were pleasant to Walter 
Scott. 

It was Walter Scott, however, who raised the 
whole of the literature of the novel into one of the 
great influences that bear on human life. Men are 
Still alive who remember the wonder and delight with 



VII.] PROSE LITER A TURE FROM 1 7S9 7'c; 1 832. 1 57 

which Waverley (1814) was welcomed. The swiftness 
of work combined with vast diligence which belongs 
to very great genius belonged to him. Guy Man?icr- 
i?ig was written in six weeks, and the Bi ide oj Lam- 
vicrmoory as great in fateful pathos as Romeo and 
Juliet, but more solemn, was done in a fortnight. 
There is then a certain aba?idon in his work which 
removes it from the dignity of the ancient writers, but 
we are repaid for this loss by t!ie intensity, and the 
animated movement, and the inspired delight with 
which he invented and wrote his stories. It is not 
composition ; it is Scott actually present in each of 
his personages, and speaking their thoughts. His 
National tales — and his own country was his best 
inspiration — are written with such love for the 
characters and the scenes, that wc feel his joy 
and love underneath each of the stories as a com- 
pleting charm, as a spirit that enchants the whole. 
And in these tales his own deep kindliness, his sym- 
pathy with human nature, united, after years of enmity, 
the Highlands to the Lowlands. In the vivid por- 
traiture and dramatic reality of such tales as Old 
Mortality and Quentifi Durward he created the 
Historical novel. " All is great," said Goethe, speak- 
ing of one of these historical tales, " in the Waverley 
Novels; material, effect, characters, execution." In 
truth, so natural is Scott's invention, that it seems 
creation. Everything speaks in the tale and to the 
tale, and the landscape is woven through the events 
and in harmony with them. His comprehensive 
power, which drew with the same certainty so 
many characters in so many various classes, was the 
direct result of his profound sympathy with the simpler 
feelings of the human heart, and of his pleasure in 
writing so as to make human life more beautiful and 
more good in the' eyes of men. He was always ro- 
mantic, and his romance did not fail him when he 
came to be old. Like Shakspere he kept that to 



158 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

the very close. The later years of his life were 
dark, but the almost unrivalled nobleness of his 
battle against ill fortune prove that he was as great 
hearted as he was great. " God bless thee, Walter, 
my man," said his uncle, " thou hast risen to be 
great, but thou wast always good." His last tale of 
power was the Fair Maid of rerth (1S28), and his last 
effort, in 1831, was made the year before he died. 
That year, 1832, which saw the deaths of Goethe and 
Scott, is the close of an epoch in literature. 



CHAPTER vnr. 

POETRV, FROM 1 7 30 TO 1 83 2. 

Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, 1725- — Thomson's Seasons, 1730- 
—Gray and Collins, Poe7>i^, 1746T757- — Goldsmith's 
Traveller, 1764 — Chatterton's Poems, 1770- — Blake's 
Potms, 1777-1794.— Crabbe's Village, 1783.— Cowper's 
Tdik, 1785. — Lurns's first Poe7ns, 1786. — Campbell's 
Pleasure^ of Hope, 1799- — Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads^ 
1798 > hi^ Prelude, 1806 ; Excursion, 1814-— Coleridge's 
Christahel, 1805- — Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, iXJar- 
mion. Lady of the Lake, 1805-8-10.— Byron's Poems, lo07- 
1823.— Shelley's Poems, 1813-1821.— Keats' Po,ms, 1817- 
1820. H^nivjioxis firU Foems, 1830- 

130. The Elements and Forms of the New 
Poetry. — The poetry we are now to study may be 
divided into two periods. The first dates from about 
the middle of Pope's Hfe, and closes with the pub- 
lication of Cowper's Task^ 17S5 ; the second begins 
with the Task and closes in 1832. The first is not 
wrongly called a time of transition. The influence 
of the poetry of the past lasted ; new elements were 
added to poetry, and new forms of it took shape. 



VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 159 

There was a change also in the style and in the 
subject of poetry. Under these heads I shall bring 
together the various i)octical works ot" this period. 

(i.) The iiijlucfice if the didactic and satirical poetry 
of the critical school lingered among tlie new elements 
which I shall notice. It is found in Johnson's two 
satires on the manners of his time, the London, 1738, 
and the Vanity of Human Jl'is/ies, 1749; in Robert 
Blair's dull poem of The Grai'e, 1743; in Edward 
Young's Night Thoughts, 1743, a poem on tiie immor- 
tality of the soul, and in his satires on The Universal 
Passion of Fame ; in the tame work of Richard 
Savage, Johnson's poor friend ; and in the short-lived 
but vigorous satires of Charles Churchill, who died in 
1764, twenty years after Savage. The Pleasures of the 
Jmagination, 1744' by Mark Akenside, belongs also in 
spirit to the time of Queen Anne, and was suggested 
by Addison's essays in the Spectator on imagination. 

( 2. ) The study of the Greek and Latin classics reviised, 
and with it a more artistic poetry. Not only correct 
form, which Pope attained, but beautiful form also 
was sought after. Men like Thomas Gray and 
William Collins strove to pour into their work that 
simplicity of beauty which the Greek poets and 
Italians like Petrarca had reached as the last result of 
genius restrained by art. Their best poems, pub- 
lished between 1746 and 1757, are exquisite examples 
of English work wrought in the spirit of the imagina- 
tive scholar and the moralist. I'he affectation of the 
age touches them now and again, but their manner, 
their way of blending together natural feeling and 
natural scenery, their studious care in the choice of 
words are worthy of special study. 

(3.) 7'he study of the Elizabethan and the earlier poets 
like Chaucer^ and of the whole course of poetry in 
England, ivas taken up with great interest. Shakspere 
and Chaucer had engaged both Dryden and Pope ; 
but the whole subject was now enlarged. Gray like 

11* 



i6o ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Pope projected a history of English poetry, and his 
Ode on the Progress of Poesy illustrates this new 
interest. Thomas Warton wrote his History of English 
Poetry, 1774-78, and in doing so suggested fresh mate- 
rial to the poets. They began to take delight in the 
childlikeness and naturalness of Chaucer as distin- 
guished from the artificial and critical verse of the 
school of Pope. Shakspere was studied in a more 
accurate way. Pope's, Theobald's, Sir Thomas Han- 
mer's, and Warburton's editions of Shakspere were 
succeeded by Johnson's in 1765 ; and Garrick the 
actor began the restoration of the genuine text of 
Shakspere's plays for the stage. 

Spenser formed the spirit and work of some poets, 
and T. Warton wrote an essay on jthe Faerie Queen. 
William Shenstone's Schoolmistress, 1742, was one of 
these Spenserian poems, and so was the Castle of 
Jiidolence, 1748, by James Thomson, author of the 
Seasons. James Beattie, in the Minstrel, i']'ji, also 
followed the stanza and manner of Spenser. 

(4.) A new element — interest in the romantic past — 
was added by the publication of Dr. Percy's Reliques 
if A7icient English Poet7y, 1765. The narrative ballad 
and the narrative romance, afterwards taken up and 
perfected by Sir Walter Scott, now struck their roots 
afresh in English poetry. Men began to seek among 
the ruder times of history for wild, natural stories of 
human life ; and the pleasure in these increased and 
accompanied the growing love of lonely, even of 
savage scenery. The Ossian, 1762, of James Mac- 
pherson, which asserted itself as a translation of Gaelic 
epic poems, is an example of this new element. Still 
more remarkable in this way were the poems of 
Thomas Chatterton, the "marvellous boy," who 
died by his own hand, in 1770, at the age of seven- 
teen. He pretended to have discovered, in a muni- 
ment room at Bristol, the Death of Sir Charles 
Bawdin^ and other poems, by an imaginary monk 



VIII.] rOETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 161 

named Thomas Rowley. Written with quaint spelling, 
and with a great deal of lyrical invention, they raised 
around them a great controversy. As an instance of 
the same tendency, even before the Reliques^ we men- 
tion Gray's translations from the Norse and British 
poetry, and his poem of the Bani, in which the bards 
of Wales are celebrated. 

131. Change of Style. — We have seen how the 
natural style ot the Elizabethan poets had ended by 
producing an unnatural style. In reaction from this 
the critical poets set aside natural feeling, and wrote 
according to frigid rules of art. Their style lost life 
and fire ; and losing these, lost art, which has its roots 
in emotion, and gained artifice, which has its roots 
in intellectual analysis. Unwarmed by any natural 
feeling, it became as unnatural a style, though in a 
different way, as that of the later Elizabethan poets. 
We may sum up then the whole history of the style 
of poetry from Elizabeth to George I. — the style 
of Milton being e.vcepted — in these words : Nature 
without Art, and Art without Nature, had reached 
similar but not idefitical results in style. But in 
the process two things had been learned. First, 
that artistic rules were necessary — and secondly, that 
natural feeling was necessary, in order that poetry 
should have a style fitted to express nobly the emo- 
tions and thoughts of man. The way was therefore 
now made ready for a style in which the Art should 
itself be Nature, and it found its first absolute expres- 
sion in a few of Gowper's lyrics. His style, in such 
poems as the Lines to his Mothers Picture, and the 
Loss of the Royal George, arises out of the simplest 
pathos, and yet is almost as pure in expression as 
Greek poetry. The work was then done ; but the 
element of fervent passion did not enter into poetry 
until 1789. 

T32. Change of Subject. — Nature. — The 
Poets have always worked on two great subjects — 



i62 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Man and Nature. Up to the age of Pope the 
subject of Man was alone treated, and we have seen 
how many phases it went through. There remained 
the subject of Nature and of man's relation to it ; 
that is, of the visible landscape, sea, and sky, and 
all that men feel in contact with them. Natural 
scenery had been hitherto only used as a background 
to the picture of human life. It now began to occupy 
a much larger space in poetry, and after a time grew 
to occupy a distinct place of its own apart from Man. 
It is the growth of this new subject which will engage 
us now. 

133. The Poetry of Natural Description. — 
We have already found traces in the poets, but chiefly 
among the Puritans, of a pleasure in rural things and 
the emotions they awakened. But Nature is only, as 
in the work of Marvell and Milton, incidentally intro- 
duced. The first poem devoted to natural description 
appeared, while Pope was yet alive, in the very midst 
of the town poetry. It was the Seasons 1726-30 ; and 
it is curious, remembering what I have said about the 
peculiar turn of the Scotcli for natural description, 
that it was the work of James Thomson, a Scotch- 
man. It described the scenery and country life of 
Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. He wrote 
with his eye upon their scenery, and even when he 
wrote of it in his room, it was with " a recollected 
love." The descriptions were too much like cata- 
logues, the very fault of the previous Scotch poets, 
a"d his style was always heavy and often cold, but he 
was the first poet who led the English people into that 
new world of nature which has enchanted us in the 
work of modern poetry, but which was entirely impos- 
sible for Pope to understand. The impulse he gave 
was soon followed. Men left the town to visit the 
country and record their feelings. William Somer- 
ville's Chase, 1735? ^^^ John Dyer's Grongar Hill, 
1726, a description of a journey in South Wales, and 



VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1S32. 163 

his Fleece, 1757, are full of country sights and scenes : 
and even Akenside mingled his spurious philosophy 
with pictures of solitary natural scenery. 

Foreign travel now enlarged the love of nature. 
Gray's L-tters, some of the best in the English lan- 
guage, describe natural scenery with a minuteness 
quite new in English Literature. In his poetry he 
used the description of nature as 'its most graceful 
ornament," but never made it the subject. In the 
Elegy In a Country Churchyard, and in the Ode on a 
Distant P/ospcct of Eton College, natural scenery is 
interwoven with reflections on human life, and used 
to point its moral. Colhns observes the same method 
in his Ode on the Passions and the Ode to Evening. 
'I'here is as yet but little love of nature for its own 
sake. A further step was made by Oliver Gold- 
smith in his Traveller, 1764, a sketch of national 
manners and governments, and in his Deserted Vil- 
lage, 1770. lie describes natural scenery with less 
emotion than Collins, and does not moralise it like 
Gray. The scenes he paints are pure pictures, and 
he has no personal interest in them. The next step 
was made by men like the two Wartons and by John 
Logan, 1782. Their poems do not speak of nature 
and human life, but of nature and themselves. They 
see the reflection of their own joys and sorrows in the 
woods and streams, and for the first time the pleasure 
of being alone with nature apart from men became a 
distinct element in modern poetry. In the latter 
poets it becomes one of their main subjects. These 
were the steps towards that love of nature for its own 
sake which we shall find in the poets who followed 
Cowper. One poem of the time almost anticipates it. 
It is the Minstrel, 1771, of Jamks Beattie. This 
poem represents a young poet educated almost alto- 
gether by lonely communion with and love of nature, 
and both in the spirit and treatment of the first part of 
the story resembles very closely Wordsworth's descrip- 



i64 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

tion of his own education by nature in the beginning 
of the Prelude^ and the history of tli£ pedler in the 
first book of the Excursion. 

134. Further Change of Subject. — Man. — 
During this time the interest in Mankind, that is, in 
Man independent of nation, class, and caste, which we 
have seen in prose, began to influence poetry. One 
form of it appeared in the interest the poets began to 
take in men of other nations than Eng-land ; another 
form of it — and this was increased by the Methodist 
revival — was the interest in the li\es of the poor. 
Thomson speaks with sympathy of the Siberian exile 
and the Mecca pilgrim, and the Traveller of Gold- 
smith enters into foreign interests. His Deserted 

Village, Shenstone's Schoolmistiess, Gray's j5"/(?^jj; cele- 
brate the annals of the poor. Michael Bruce in his 
Lochleven praises the " secret primrose path of rural 
life," and Dr. John Langhorne in his Country Justice 
pleads the cause of the poor and paints their sorrows. 
Connected with this new element is the simple ballad 
of simple love, such as Shenstone's Jennny Daivson, 
Mickle's Mariner's Wife, Goldsmith's Edivin and 
Angelina, poems which started a new type of human 
poetry, afterwards worked out niore completely in the 
Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth. In a class apart I 
call attention to the Song of David, a long poem 
written by Christopher Smart, a friend of Johnson's. 
It will be found in Chambers' "Cyclopaedia of Eng- 
lish Literature." Composed for the most part in a 
madhouse, the song has a touch here and there of the 
overforcefulness and the lapsing thoughts of a half 
insane brain. But its power of metre and imagina- 
tive presentation of thoughts and things, and its 
mingling of sweet and grand religious poetry ought to 
make it better known. It is unique in style and in 
character. 

135, Scottish Poetry illustrates and anticipates 
the poetry of the poor and the ballad. We have not 



VI 1 1. J POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 165 

mentioned it since Sir David I^yndsay, for with the 
exception of stray songs its voice was silent for a 
century and a half. It revived in Allan Ramsay, a 
friend of Pope and Gay. His light pieces of rustic 
humour were followed by the Tea Table Miscellany 
and the Ever-Green, collections of existing Scottish 
songs mixed up with some of his own. Ramsay's 
pastoral drama of the Gentle Shepherd, 1725, is a 
pure, tender, and genuine picture of Scottish lite and 
love among the poor and in the country. Robert 
Ferguson deserves to be named because he kindled 
the muse of Burns, and his occasional pieces, 1773, 
are chiefly concerned with the rude and humorous 
life of Edinburgh. The Ballad, always continuous in 
Scotland, took a more modern but very pathetic form 
in such productions as Auld Robin Gray and the 
Fhnvers of the Forest, a mourning for those who fell at 
Flodden Field. The peculiarities I have dwelt on 
already continue in this revival. There is the same 
nationality, the same rough wit, the same love of 
nature, but the love of colour has lessened. With 
Robert Burns poetry written in the Scotch dialect 
may be said to say its last word of genius, though it 
lingered on in James Hogg's pretty poem of Kilmejiy 
in The Queen's Wake, 1813, and continues a song- 
making existence to the present day. 

136. The Second Period of the New Poetry. 
— The new elements and the changes on which I have 
dwelt are expressed by three poets — Cowper, Crabbe, 
and Burns. But before these we must mention the 
poems of William Blake, the artist, and for three 
reasons, (i.) They represent the new elements. The 
Poetical Sketches, written in 1777, illustrate the new 
study of the Elizabethan poets. Blake imitated 
Spenser, and in his short fragment of Edimrd I/I. we 
hear again the note of Marlowe's violent imagination. 
A short poem To the Muses is a cry for the restoration 
to English poetry of the old poetic passion it had lost. 



1 66 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

In some ballad poems we trace the influence repre- 
sented by Ossian and given by the publication of 
Percy's Rdiqiies. (2.) We find also in his work cer- 
tain eLMiients which belonged to the second period of 
which I shall soon speak. The love of animals is 
one. A great love of children and the poetry of 
home is another. He also anticipated in 1789 and 
1794, when his Songs of Innocence and Experience were 
written, the simple natural poetry of ordinary life 
which Wordsworth perfected in the Lyrical Ballads, 
1798. Further still, we find in these poems traces of 
tne democratic element, of the hatred of priestcraft, 
and of the war with social wrongs which came much 
later into English poetry. We even find traces of the 
mysticism and the search afier the problem of life that 
fill so much of our poetry after 1832. (3.) But that 
which is most special in Blake is his extraordinary 
reproduction of the spirit, tone, and ring of the Eliza- 
bethan songs, of the inimitable innocence and fear- 
lessness which belongs to the childhood of a new 
literature. The little poems too in the Songs of I?ino- 
cence, on infancy and first motherhood, and on subjects 
like the Lamb, are without rival in our language for 
simplicity and songful joy. The Sonf^s of Experie?ice 
give the reverse side of the Sojigs of Innocence^ and 
they see the evil of the world as a child with a man's 
heart would see it — with exaggerated and ghastly 
horror. Blake stands alone in our poetry, and his 
work coming where it did, between 1777 and 1794, 
makes it the more remarkable. 

137. William Cowper's first poems were the 
Olney Hymns, 1779, written along with John Newton, 
and in these the religious poetry of Charles Wesley 
was continued. The profound personal religion, 
gloomy even to insanity as it often became, which 
fills the whole of Cowper's poetry, introduced a theo- 
logical element into English poetry which continually 
increased till tvithin the last ten years, when it has 



viii.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1S32. 167 

gradually ceased. His didactic and satirical poems 
in 1782 link him backwards to the last age. His 
translation of Homer, 1791, and of shorter pieces 
from the Latin and Greek, connects him with the 
classical influence, his interest in Milton with the 
revived study of the English Poets. The playful 
and gentle vein of humour which he showed in John 
Gilpin and other poems, opened a new kind of verse 
to poets. With tiiis kind of humour is connected a 
simple pathos of which Cowper is our greatest master. 
The Lines to Mary U7nvin and to his Mothers Picture 
prove, with the work of Blake, that pure natural feel- 
ing wholly free from artifice had returned to English 
song. A new element was also introduced by him 
and Blake — the love of aniuials and the poetry of 
their relation to man, a vein plentifully worked by 
after poets. His greatest work was the Task, 17S5. 
It is mainly a description of himself and his life in 
the country, his home, his friends, his thoughts as he 
walked, the quiet landscape of Olney, the life of the 
poor people about him, mixed up with disquisitions 
on political and social subjects, and at the end, a 
prophecy of the victory of the Kingdom of God. The 
change in it in relaiio7i to the subject of Nature is very 
great. Cowper is the first of the poets who loves 
Nature entirely for her own sake. He paints only 
what he sees, but he paints it with the afiection of a 
child for a flower and with the minute observation of 
a man. The change ift relation to the subject of Man is 
equally great. The idea of Mankind as a wJwlc which 
we have seen growing up is fully formed in Cowper's 
mind. The range of his interests is as wide as the 
world, and all men form one brotherhood. All the 
social questions of Education, Prisons, Hospitals, city 
and country life, the state of the poor and their sor- 
rows, the question of universal freedom and of slavery, 
of human wrong and oppression, of just and free 
government, of international intercourse and union, 

15 



i68 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

and above all the entirely new question of the future 
destiny of the race as a whole, are introduced 
by Cowper into English poetry. It is a wonderful 
change ; a change so wonderful that it is like a new 
world. And though splendour and passion were 
added by the poets who succeeded him to the new 
poetry, yet they worked on the thoughts he had begun 
to express, and he is their forerunner. 

138. George Crabbe took up the side of the 
poetry of Man which had to do with the lives of the 
poor in the Village, 1783, and in the Parish Register, 
1807. In the short tales related in these books we 
are brought face to face with the sternest pictures of 
humble life, its sacrifices, temptations, righteousness, 
love, and crimes. The prison, the workhouse, the 
hospital, and the miserable cottage are all sketched 
with a truthfulness perhaps too unrelenting, and the 
effect of this poetry in widening human sympathies 
was very great. The Borough and Tales i?i Verse 
followed, and finally the Tales of the Hall in 1819. 
His work wanted the humour of Cowper, and though 
often pathetic and always forcible, was too forcible for 
pure pathos. His work on Nature is as minute and 
accurate, but as limited in range of excellence, as his 
work on Man. Robert Bloomfield, himself a poor 
shoemaker, added to this poetry of the poor. The 
Farmer's Boy, 1798, and the Rural Tales, are poems 
as cheerful as Crabbe's were stem, and his descriptions 
of rural life are not less faithful. The kind of poetry 
thus started long continued in our verse. Wordsworth 
took it up and added to it new features, and Thomas 
Hood in short pieces like the So7ig of the Shirt g2i\Q it 
a direct bearing on social evils. 

139. One element, the passionate treatment of love, 
had been on the whole absent from our poetry since 
the Restoration. It was restored by Robert Burns. 
In his love songs we hear again, only more simply, 
more directly, the same natural music which in the age 



VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 169 

of Elizabeth enchanted the world. It was as a love- 
poet that he began to write, and the first edition of his 
j)oems appeared in 1786. But he was not only the 
poet of love, but also of the new excitement about 
Man. Himself poor, he sang the poor. Neither 
poverty nor low birth made a man the worse — the 
man was "a man for a' that." He did the same work 
in Scotland in 1786 which Crabbe began in England 
in 1783 and Cowper in 1785, and it is worth remark- 
ing how the dates run together. As in Cowper, so 
also in Burns, the further widening of human 
sympathies is shown in the new tenderness for animals. 
The birds, sheep, cattle, and wild creatures of the 
wo'od and field fill as large a space in the poetry of 
Burns as in that of Wordsworth and Coleridge. He 
carried on also the Celtic elements of Scotch poetry, 
but he mingled them with others specially English. 
The rattling fun of the Joliy Beggars and of Tain 
dShafittr is united to a lifelike painting of human 
character which is peculiarly English. A large gentle- 
ness of feeling often made his wit into that true 
humour which is more English than Celtic, and the 
passionate pathos of such poems as Mary in Heaven 
is connected with this vein of English humour. The 
special nationality of Scotch poetry is as strong in 
Burns as in any of his predecessors, but it is also 
mingled with a larger view of man than the merely 
national one. Nor did he fail to carry on the Scotch 
love of nature, though he shows the English influence 
in using natural description not for the love of nature 
alone, but as a background for human love. It was 
the strength of his passions and the weakness of 
his moral will which made his poetry and spoilt his 
life. 

140. The French Revolution and the Poets. 
— Certain ideas relating to Mankind considered as a 
whole had been growing up in Europe for more than 
a century, and we have seen their influence on the work 



I70 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

of Covvper, Crabbe, and Burns. These ideas spoke of 
natural rights that belonged to every man, and which 
united all men to one another. All men were by right 
equal, and free, and brothers. There was therefore 
only one class, the class of Man ; only one nation, 
the nation of Man, of which all were equal citizens. 
All the old divisions therefore which wealth and rank 
and class and caste and national boundaries had made, 
were put aside as wrong and useless. Such ideas had 
been for a long time expressed by France in her liter- 
ature. They were now waiting to be expressed in 
action, and in the overthrow of the Bastille in 1789, 
and in the proclamation of the new Constitution in 
the following year, France threw them abruptly into 
popular and political form. Immediately they became 
living powers in the world, and it is round the excite- 
ment they kindled in England that the work of the 
poets from 1790 to 1830 can best be grouped. Words- 
worth, Coleridge, and Southey accepted them with 
joy, but receded from them when they ended in the 
violence of the Reign of Terror, and in the imperial- 
ism of Napoleon. Scott turned from them with pain 
to write of the romantic past. Byron did not express 
them themselves, but he expressed the Avhole of 
the revolutionary spirit in its action against old 
social opinions. Shelley took them up after the 
reaction against them had begun to die away and 
re-expressed them. Two men, Rogers and Keats, 
were wholly untouched by them. One special thing 
they did for poetry. They brought back, by the 
powerful feelings they kindled in men, passion into its 
style, into all its work about Man, and through that, 
into its work about Nature. 

141. Robert Southey began his poetical life with 
the revolutionary poem of Wat lyler. 1794; and 
between 1802 and 1814 wrote Thalaba, Madoc, The 
Curse of Kehama, and Roderick the Last of the Goths. 
Thalaba and Kehama are stories of Arabian and of 



VIII.] FOETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 171 

Indian mylliology. Full of Southey's miscellaneous 
learning, they are real poems, and have the interest of 
good narrative and the charm of musical metre, but 
the fmer spirit of poetry is not in them. Roderick is 
the most human and therefore the most poetical. His 
Vision of Judgment, written on the death of George III., 
and ridiculed by Byron in another Piston, proves him 
to have become a Tory of Tories. Samukl T. Cole- 
ridge could not turn round so completely, but the 
Nvild enthusiasm of his early poems was lessened when 
in 1796 he wrote the Ode to the departing Year and 
the Ode to France. When France, however, ceasing 
to be the champion of freedom, attacked Switzerland, 
Coleridge as well as Wordsworth ceased to believe in 
her, and fell back on the old English ideas of patriotism 
and of tranquil freedom. Still the disappointment 
was bitter, and the Ode to DeJectio?i is instinct not 
only with his own wasted life, but with the sorrow of 
one who has had golden ideals and found them turn in 
his hands to clay. His best work is but little, but of 
Its kind it is perfect and unique. For exquisite me- 
trical movement and for imaginative phantasy, there 
is nothing in our language to be compared with 
Christabel, 1805, and Kiibla Khan and the Ancient 
Alariner, published as one of the Lyrical Ballads in 
1798. The little poem called Lotc is not so good, 
but it touches with great grace that with which all 
sympathise. All that he did excellently might be 
bound up in twenty pages, but it should be bound in 
pure gold. 

142. Of all the poets misnamed Lake Poets, 
William Wordsworth was the greatest. Born in 
1770, educated on the banks of Esthwaite, he loved 
the scenery of the Lakes as a boy, lived among it in 
liis manhood, and died in 1850 at Rydal Mount, 
close to Rydal Lake. He took his degree in 1791 at 
Cambridge. The year before he had made a short 
tour on the Continent and stepped on the F'rench 



1 72 ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

shore at the very time when the whole land was " mad 
with joy." The end of 1791 saw him agam in France 
and living at Orleans. He threw himself eagerly into 
the Revolution, joined the " patriot side," and came 
to Paris just after the September massacre of 1792. 
Narrowly escaping the fate of his friends the Brisso- 
tins, he got home to England before the execution of 
Louis XVI. in 1793, and published his Descriptive 
Sketches. His sympathy with the French continued, 
and he took their side against his own country. He 
was poor, but his friend Raisley Calvert left him 900/. 
and enabled him to live the simple life he had now 
chosen, the life of a retired poet. At first we find 
him at Racedown, where in 1797 he made friendship 
with Coleridge, and then at Alfoxden, in Somerset, 
where he and Coleridge planned and published in 
1798 the Lyrical Ballads. After a winter in Germany 
with Coleridge, where the Prelude was begun, he took a 
small cottage at Grasmere, and there in 1805-6 finished 
the Prelude, not published till 1850. Another set of 
the Lyrical Ballads appeared in 1802, and in 18 14 
his philosophical poem the Excursion. From that 
time till his death he produced from his home at 
Rydal Mount a long succession of poems. 

143. Wordsworth and Nature — T\\q Prelude 
is the history of Wordsworth's poetical growth from a 
child till 1806. It reveals him as the poet of Nature 
and of Man. His view of Nature was entirely different 
from that which up to his time the poets had held. 
Wordsworth said that Nature was alive. It had, he 
thought, one living soul which, entering into flower, 
stream, or mountain, gave them each their own life. 
Between this Spirit in Nature and the Mind of Man 
there was a pre-arranged harmony which enabled 
Nature to communicate its own thoughts to Man, and 
Man to reflect upon them, until an absolute union 
between them was established. This idea made him 
the first who loved Nature with a personal love, for 



VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 173 

she, being living, and personal, and not only bis re- 
flection, was made capable of being loved as a man 
loves a woman. He could brood on her character, 
her ways, her words, her liie, as he did on those of his 
wife or sister. Hence arose his minute and loving 
observation of her and- his passionate description of all 
her life. This was his natural philosophy, and bound 
up as it was with the idea of God as the Thought 
which pervaded and made the world, it rose into a 
Philosopliy of God and Nature and Man. But he 
had a kind of moral philosophy distinct from this, 
which was no deeper than a lofty and grave morality 
created in union with a formal Christianity. It has no 
point of union with his philosophy of Nature and 
God and Man, and is incapable of imaginative treat- 
ment. Naturally then, when it enters his poetry, it is 
dragged in, and is always prosaic. He is not the 
poet then ; he is the formalist, 

144. vVordsworth and Man. — The pojt of 
Nature in this special way, Wordsworth is even 
more the Poet of Man. It is by his close and 
loving penetration into the realities and simplicities 
of human life that he himself makes his claim on 
our reverence as a pojt. We have seen the vivid 
interest that Wordsworth took in the new ideas about 
man as they were shown in the French Revolu- 
tion. But even before that he relates in the Frchide 
how he had been led through his love of Nature to 
honour Man. The shepherds of the Lake hills, the 
dalesmen, had been seen by him as part of the wild 
scenery in which he lived, and he mixed up their life 
with the grandeur of Nature and came to honour them 
as part of her being. The love of Nature led him 
to the love of Man. It was exactly the reverse order 
to that of the previous poets. At Cambridge, and 
afterwards in the crowd of London and in his first 
tour on the Continent, he received new impressions 
of the vast world of Man, but Nature still remained 



174 ENGLISH LITERATURE, [chap. 

the first. It was only during his life in France and 
in the excitement of the new theories and their activity 
that he was swept away from Nature and found him- 
self thinking of Man as distinct from her and first in 
importance. But the hopes he had formed from the 
Revolution broke down. AH his dreams about a new life 
of man were made vile when France gave up Hberty 
for Napoleon ; and he was left without love of Nature 
or care for Man. It was then that his sister Dorothy, 
herself worthy of mention in a history of literature, led 
him back to his early love of Nature and restored 
his mind. Living quietly at Grasmere, he sought 
in the simple lives of the dalesmen round him for the 
foundations of a truer view of mankind than the 
theories of the Revolution afforded. And in thinking 
and writing of the common duties and faith, kindnesses 
and truth of lowly men, he found in Man once more 

" an object of delight, 
Of pure imagination and of love." 

With that he recovered also his interest in the larger 
movements of mankind. His love of liberty and 
hatred of oppression revived. He saw in Napoleon the 
enemy of man. A whole series of sonnets followed 
the events on the Continent. One recorded his horror 
at the attack on the Swiss, another mourned the fate 
of Venice, another the fate of Toussaint the negro 
chief; others celebrated the struggle of Hofer and the 
Tyrolese, others the struggle of Spain. Two thanks- 
giving odes rejoiced in the overthrow of the oppressor 
at Waterloo. He became conservative in his old 
age, but his interest in social and national movements 
did not decay. He wrote on Education, the Poor 
Laws, and other subjects. When almost seventy he 
took the side of the Carbonari, and sympathised 
with the Italian struggle. He was truly a poet of 
Mankind. But his chief work was done in his own 
country and among his own folk; and lie is the 



viii.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 175 

foremost singer of those who threw around the lives 
of homely men and women the glory and sweetness 
of song. He made his verse "deal boldly with sub- 
stantial things \ " his theme was " no other than the 
very heart of man ; " and his work has become what 
he desired it to be, a power like one of Nature's. He 
lies asleep now among the people he loved, in the 
green churchyard of Grasmere, by the side of the 
stream of Rothay, in a place as quiet as his life. Few 
spots on earth are more sacred than his grave. 

145. Sir Walter Scott was Wordsworth's dear 
friend, and his career as a poet began when Words- 
worth first came to (irasmere, with the Lay of the Last 
Minstrel, 1805. Marmion followed in 1808, and the 
Lady of the Lake in 18 10. These were his best 
poems ; the others, with the exception of some lyrics 
which touch the sadness and brightness of life with 
equal power, do not count in our estimate of him. 
He perfected the narrative poem. In Marmion and 
the Lady of the Lake his wonderful inventiveness in 
narration is at its height, and it is matched by the 
vividness of his natural description. No poet, and in 
this he carries on the old Scotch quality, is a finer 
colourist. Nearly all his natural description is of the 
wild scenery of the Highlands and the Lowland moor- 
land. He touched it with a pencil so light, graceful, 
and true, that the very names are made for ever 
romantic ; while his faithful love for the places he 
describes fills his poetry with the finer spirit of his 
own tender humanity. 

146. Scotland produced another poet in Thomas 
Campbell. His earliest poem, the Pleasures of Hope, 
1799, belonged in its formal rhythm and rhetoric, 
and in its artificial feeling for Nature, to the time of 
Thomson and Gray rather than to the newer time. 
His later poems, such as Gertrude of Wyoming::; and 
O' Connor's Child, are more natural, but they are not 
nature. He will chiefly live by his lyrics. LLohen- 

12* 



176 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

li/iaen, the Battle of the Baltic, the Mariners of Eng- 
land, are splendid specimens of the war poetry of 
England ; and the Song to the Evening Star and Lord 
Ullin's Daughter are full of tender feeling, and mark 
the influence of the more natural style that Words- 
worth had brought to perfection. 

J47. Rogers and Moore.— The Pleasures of 
Memory, 1792, and the Italy, 18 12, of Samuel Rogers, 
are the work of a slow and cultivated mind, and 
contain some laboured but fine descriptions. The 
curious thing is that, living apart in a courtly region 
of culture, there is not a trace in all his work that 
Europe and England and Society had passed during 
his life through a convulsion of change. To that 
convulsion the best work of Thomas Moore, an 
Irishman, may be referred. Ireland during Moore's 
youth endeavoured to exist under the dreadful and 
wicked weight of its Penal Code. The excitement 
of the French Revolution kindled the anger of 
Ireland into the rebellion of 1798, and Moore's 
genius into writing songs to the Irish airs collected 
in 1796. The best of these have for their hidden 
subject the struggle of Ireland against England. 
Many of them have great lyrical beauty ; they 
always have soft melody. At times they reach true 
pathos, but oftenest it is their lightly-lifted gaiety 
which is delightful, and they all have this excellence, 
that they are truly things to be sung. He sang them 
himself in society, and it is not too much to say that 
they helped by the interest they stirred to further 
Catholic Emancipation. Moore's Oriental tales in 
Lalla Rookh are chiefly flash and glitter, but they 
are pleasant reading. His vers de societe are as light 
as they are pointed, and his satirical songs and 
poetical letters, written to assist the Liberal party, 
are the cleverest of their kind that we possess. 

148. The post-Revolution Poets. — We turn 
to very different types of men when we come to 



VI II. J rOETRV, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 177 

Lord Byron, Shelley and Keats, whom we may call 
post-Revolution poets. 

Of the three, Lord Byron had most of the quality 
we may call force. Born in 1788, his Hours of Idleness^ 
a collection of short poems, in 1807, was mercilessly 
lashed in tlie Edinburgh Rcinew. The attack only 
served to awaken his genius, and he replied with as- 
tonishing vigour in the satire of English Bards and 
Scotch Reincwers in 1809. Eastern travel gave birth 
to the first two cantos of Childe Harold, 18 12, to the 
Giaour ?iW^ the Bride of Abydos in 1813, to the Cor- 
sair and Lara in 18 14. The Siege of Corinth, 
Parisina, the Prisoner of Chillon, Manfred, and 
Childe Harold were finished before 1819. In 1818 
he began a new style in Beppo, which he developed 
fully in the successive issues oi Don Juan, 1819-1823. 
During this time he published a numbc:r of dramas, 
partly historical, as his Marino Ealiero, partly imagi- 
native, as the Cain. His life had been wild and use- 
less, but he died in trying to redeem it for the sake of 
the freedom of Greece. At Missolonghi he was seized 
with fever, and j)assed away in April, 1824. 

149. The position of Byron as a poet is a 
curious one. He is j)artly of the past and partly of 
the present. Something of the school of Pope clings 
to him ; yet no one so completely broke away from 
old measures and old manners to make his poetry 
individual, not miitative. At first he has no interest 
whatever in the human questions which were so 
strongly felt by Wordsworth and Shelley. His early 
work is chiefly narrative poetry, written that he might 
talk of himself and not of mankind. Nor has he any 
philosojihy except that which centres round the pro- 
blem of his own being. Cain, the most thoughtful of 
his productions, is in reality nothing more than the 
representation of the way in which the doctrines of 
original sin and final reprobation affected his own soul. 
We feel naturally great interest m this strong person- 



178 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

ality, put before us with such obstinate power, but 
It wearies at last. P'inally it wearied himself. As 
he grew in power, he escaped from his morbid self, 
and ran into the opposite extreme m Don Jiian. It 
is chiefly in it that he shows the influence of the revo- 
lutionary spirit. It is written in bold revolt against all 
the conventionality of social morality and religion and 
politics. It claimed for himself and for others abso- 
lute freedom of individual act and thought in oppo- 
sition to that force of society which tends to make all 
men after one pattern. This was the best result of 
his work, though the way in which it w^as done can 
scarcely be approved. He escaped still more from 
his diseased self when, fully seized on by the new spirit 
of setting men free fiom oppression, he sacrificed his 
hfe for the deliverance of Greece. 

As the poet of Nature he belongs also to the old and 
the new school. Byron's sympathy with Nature is a 
sympathy with himself reflected in her moods. But he 
also escapes from this position of the eighteenth- 
century poets, and looks on Nature as she is, apart 
from himself; and this escape is made, as in the case 
of his poetry of Man, in his later poems. Lastly, it is 
his colossal power and the ease that comes from it, in 
which he resembles Dryden, that marks him specially. 
But it is always more power of the intellect than of the 
imagination. 

150. In Percy Bysshe Shelley, on the contrary, 
the imagination is supreme and the intellect its ser- 
vant. He produced while yet a boy some worthless 
tales, but soon showed in Queen Mab, 18 13, the in- 
fluence of the revolutionary era, combined in him 
with a violent attack on the existing forms of religion. 
The poem is a poor one, but its poverty prophesies 
greatness. Its chief idea was the new one that had 
come into literature — the idea of the destined perfec- 
tion of mankind in a future golden age. One half of 
Shelley's poetry, and of his heart, was devoted to help 



vm.] tOETR\\ FROM 1730 TO 1832. 179 

the world towards this idea, and to denounce and 
overthrow all that stood in its way. The other half 
was personal, an outpouring of himself in his seeking 
after the perfect ideal he could not find, and, sadder 
still, could not even conceive. Queen Mab is an 
example of the first, Alastor of the second. The 
hopes for man with which Queen Mad was written 
grew cold, he himself felt ill and looked for death ; 
ihe world seamed chilled to all the ideas he loved, 
and he turned from writing about mankind to de- 
scribe in Alastor the life and wandering and death 
of a lonely poet. But the Alastor who took the poet 
away from the race was, in Shelley's own thought, 
a spirit of evil, a spirit of solitude, and his next 
poem, the Rei'olt of J slam ^ 181 7, unites him again 
to the interests of mankindi He wrote it with the 
hope that men were beginning to recover from the 
ai)athy and despair into which the failure of the revo- 
lutionary ideas had thrown them, and to show them 
what they should strive and hope for, and destroy. But 
it is still only a martyr's hope that the poet possesses. 
The two chief characters, Laon and Cythna, die in 
their struggle against tyranny, but live again and know 
that their sacrifice will bring forth the fruit of freedom. 
The poem itself has finer passages in it than Alastor^ 
but as a whole it is inferior to it. It is quite formless. 
The same year Shelley went to Italy, and renewed 
health and the climate gave him renewed power. 
Mosalind and Helen appeared, and in 18 18 Julian and 
Maddalo was written. In the second of these — a 
familiar conversation on the story of a madman in 
San Lazzaro at Venice — his poetry becomes more 
masculine, and he has for the first time won mastery 
over his art. The new life and joy he had now gained 
brought back his enthusiasm for mankind, and he 
broke out into the splendid lyric drama of Prometheus 
Unbound. Asia, at the beginning of the drama separ- 
ated from Prometheus, is tlie all-pervading Love which 
16 



iSc ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 

in loving makes the universe of nature. When Pro- 
metheus is united to Asia, the spirit of Love in Man 
is wedded to the spirit of Love in Nature, and Good 
is all in all. The marriage of these two, and the distinct 
existence of each for that purpose, is the same idea 
as Wordsworth's differently expressed ; and Shelley 
and he are the only two poets who have touched 
It philosophically, Wordsworth with most contem- 
plation, Shelley with most imagination. Pro77ietheus 
Unbound \^ the finest example we have of the working 
out in poetry of the idea of a regenerated universe, 
and the fourth act is the choral song of its 
emancipation. Then, Shelley, having expressed this 
idea with exultant imagination, turned to try his 
matured power upon other subjects. Two of these 
were neither personal nor for the sake of man. 
The first was the drama of the Cenci, the gravest 
and noblest tragedy since Webster wrote which we 
possess. It is as restrained in expression as the 
previous poem is exuberant : yet there is no poem 
of Shelley's in which passion and thought and 
imagery are so wrought together. The second was 
the Adonais, a lament for the death of John Keats. 
It is a poem written by one who seems a spirit 
about a spirit, and belongs in expression, thought, 
and feeling to that world above the senses in 
which Shelley habitually lived. Of all this class 
of poems, to which many of his lyrics belong, 
Epipsychidion is the most impalpable, but, to those 
•who care for Shelley's ethereal world, the finest 
poem he ever wrote. Of the same class is the Witch 
of Atlas, the poem in which he has personified divine 
Imagination in her work in poetry, and all "her atten- 
dants, and all her doings among men. 

Asa lyric poet, Shelley, on his own ground, is easily 
great. Some of the lyrics are purely personal ; some, 
as in the very finest, the Ode to the West Wind, mingle 
together personal feeling and prophetic hope for Man. 



viii.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 181 

Some are lyrics of Nature ; some are dedicated to 
the rebuke of tyranny and the cause of Hberty ; others 
belong to the passion of love, and others are written 
on visions of those " shapes that haunt Thought's 
wildernesses." They form together the most sensitive, 
the most imaginative, and the most musical, but the 
least tangible lyrical poetry we possess. 

As the poet of Nature, he had the same idea as 
Wordsworth, that Nature was alive : .but while Words- 
worth made the active principle which filled and made 
Nature to be Though. t, Shelley made it Love. As 
each distinct thing in Nature had to Wordsworth a 
thinking spirit in it, so each thing had to Shelley a 
loving spirit in it : even the invisible spheres of vapour 
sucked by the sun from the forest pool had each their 
indwelling spirit. We feel then that Shelley, as well 
as Wordsworth, and for a similar reason, could give a 
special love to, and therefore describe vividly, each 
natural thing he saw. He wants the closeness of 
grasp of nature which Wordsworth and Keats had, 
but he had the power in a far greater degree than they 
of describing the cloud-scenery of the sky, and vast 
realms of landscape. He is in this, as well as in 
his eye for subtle colour, the Turner of poetry. 

Towards the end of his life his verse became 
overloaded with mystical metapliysics. What he might 
have been we cannot tell, lor at the age of thirty he 
left us, drowned in the sea he loved, washed up and 
burned on the sandy spits near Pisa. His ashes lie 
beneath the walls of Rome, and Cor cordiinn^ " Heart 
of hearts," written on his tomb, well says what all who 
love poetry feel when they think of him. 

151. John Keats lies near him, cut off like him 
ere his genius ripened ; not so great, but possessing 
perhaps greater possibilities of greatness ; not so ideal, 
but for that very reason more naturally at home with 
nature than Shelley. In one thing he was entirely 
different from Shelley — he had no care whatever for the 



1 82 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

great human questions which stirred Shelley ; the pre- 
sent was entirely without interest to him. He marks 
the close of that poetic movement which the ideas of 
the Revolution in France had started in England, as 
Shelley marks the attempt to revive it. Keats, see- 
ing nothing to move him in an age which had now 
sunk into apathy on these points, went back to Greek 
and mediaeval life to find his subjects, and established, 
in doing so, that which has been called the literary 
poetry of England. His first subject after some 
minor poems in 1817 was Endymion, 18 18, his last, 
Hyperion, 1820. These, along with Zamia, were 
poems of Greek life. Endymion has all the faults 
and all the promise of a great poet's early work, and 
no one knew its faults better than Keats, whose 
preface is a model of just self-judgment. Hyperion, 
a fragment of a tale of the overthrow of the Titans, is 
itself like a Titanic torso, and in it the faults of Endy- 
mion are repaired and its promise fulfilled. Both are 
filled with that which was deepest in the mind of 
Keats, the love of loveliness for its own sake, the 
sense of its rightful and pre-eminent power ; and in 
the singleness of worship which he gave to Beauty, 
Keats is especially the artist, and the true father of 
the latest modern school of poetry. Not content 
with carrying us into Greek life, he took us back 
into mediaeval romance, and in this also he started 
a new type of poetry. There are two poems which 
mark this revival — Isabella, and the Eve of St. Agnss. 
L\abella is a version of Boccaccio's tale of the Pot of 
Basil ; St. Agnes Eve is, as far as I know, invented. 
Mediaeval in subject, they are modern in manner; but 
they are, above all, of the poet himself. Their magic 
is all his own. Their originality has caused much 
imitation of them, but they are too original for imita- 
tion. In smaller poems, such as the Ode to a Grecian 
Urn, the poem to Autumn, and some sonnets, he is 
perhaps at his very best. In these and in all, his 



viii.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 183 

painting of Nature is as close, as direct as Words- 
worth's ; less full of the imagination that links human 
thought to Nature, but more full of the imagination 
which broods upon enjoyment of beauty. His career 
was short ; he had scarcely begun to write when death 
took him away from tlie loveliness he loved so keenly. 
Consumption drove him to Rome, and there he died, 
save for one friend, now also dead, alone. He 
lies not far from Shelley, on *'the slope of green 
access," near llie pyramid of Caius Cestius. 

152. Modern English Poetry. — Keats marks 
the exhaustion of the impulse which began with Burns 
and Covvper. There was no longer now in England 
any large wave of public thought or feeling such as 
could awaken poetry. We have then, arising after 
his death, a number of pretty little poems, having no 
inward fire, no idea, no marked character. 'Ihey 
might be written by any versifier at any time, and 
express pleasant indifferent thought in pleasant verse. 
Such were Mrs. Hemans's poems, and those of L. E. L., 
and such were Tennyson's earliest poems, m 1830. 
But with the Reform agitation, and the new religious 
agitation at Oxford, which was of the same date, a 
new excitement or a new form of the old, came on 
England, and with it a new tribe of poets arose, 
among whom we live. The elements of their poetry 
were also new, though we can trace their beginnings in 
the previous poetry. It took up the theological, scepti- 
cal, social, and political questions which disturbed 
England. It gave itself to metaphysics and to analysis 
of human character. It studied and brought to great 
excellence the idyll. It carried the love of natural 
scenery into almost every county in England, and 
described the whole land. 

Two of these men stand forth from the rest, and 
their main work lies behind us. The first cf these, 
Robert Browning, whose wife will justly share his 
fame, stands quite alone. He has set himself more 



i84 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap 

than any other English poet to answer the question — 
What is the end of life, and what its explanation — and 
he has answered this in a number of poems, nar- 
rative, lyric, dramatic, and ranging from the times of 
Athens through the Renaissance up to the present day. 
The principles laid down in reply are always the 
same, but their exposition is continually varied. He 
has drawn with a subtle, strange, and minute pencil 
the characters of men and women, of an age, of 
a town, of phases of passion, even of sudden 
moments of passion ; and in doing so his imagina- 
tion has wrought hand in hand with Thought which, 
inventing as it winds through its subject, has perhaps 
too much scientific pleasure in itself. Art, music, 
classical learning, the semipaganism of the Renais- 
sance, the remoter phases of early Christianity, have 
each, in specialised phases of them, been set vividly 
into poetry by his work. He has excelled, when he 
chose, in light narrative, in lyrics of love and of war. 
Natural scenery, and especially that of Italy, he 
paints with fire, but he does his best work when the 
landscape is, like his characters, a special or a strange 
one. He is an intellectual poet, but neither imagina- 
tion nor the passion of his subject fail him. 

The second of these poets is Alfred Tennyson, and 
he has for more than forty years remained at the head of 
modern poetry. All the great subjects of his time he 
has toucned poetically, and enlightened. His feeling 
for nature is accurate, loving, and of a wide" range. 
His human sympathy fills as wide a field. The large 
interests of mankind, and of his own time, the lives 
of simple people, and the subtler phases of thought 
and feeling which arise in our overwrought society 
are wisely and tenderly written of in his poems. His 
drawing of distinct human cnaracters is the best we 
have in pure poetry since Cha*ucer wrote. He makes 
true songs ; and he has excelled all English writers in 
the pure Idyll. The Idylls of the King are a kind of 



VIII.] POETRY, FROM 1730 TO 1832. 185 

epic, and he has lately tried tiie drania. In lyrical 
measures, as in tlie tbrm of iiis blank verse, he is 
as inventive as original. Ii is by the breadth of his 
range that he most conclusively takes the tirst place 
among the modern poets. 

Within the last ten years, the impulse given in '32 
has died away and the same thing which we find in the 
case of Keats has again taken place. A new class of 
literary poets has arisen, who have no care for a 
present they think dull, for religious questions to 
which they see no end. They too have gone back to 
Greek and mediaeval and old Norse life for their 
subjects. They find much of their inspiration in 
Italy and in Chaucer ; but they continue the love 
poetry and the poetry of natural description. It 
is some pity that so much of their work is apart 
from English subjects, but we need not be ungrate- 
ful enough to complain, for Tennyson has always kept 
us close to the scenery, the traditions, ihe daily life 
and the history of hngland ; and his last jjoem, the 
drama of Harold, 1877, is written almost exactly 
twelve hundred years smce the date of our first poem, 
Caedmon's Paraphrase. To think of one and then of 
the other, and of the great and continuous stream 
of literature that has flowed between them, is more 
than enough to make us all proud of the name of 
Englishmen. 






K 



136 AMERICAN LITERA TURE. [chap. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



CHAPTER IX. 
1647-1883. 

Section i. Success of a Literature — the Colonists — Public 
Schools. 2. Colonial Period. 3 and 4. Jonathan Edwards 
— his Influence. 5. Benjamin Franklin. 6. A Change. 
7. The Federalist. 8. Newspapers and Journalists. 9. Ear- 
ly Novelists. 10. Irving and his Friends, il. Theological 
Opinions. 12. Historians. 13. Poetry. 14. Subjects and 
Readers. 15. Periodicals. 16. Newspapers. 17. Miscel- 
laneous Writers. 18. Political Discussions. 19. Essayists. 
20. Later Novelists. 21. Poets of the Present. 22. Novels 
and Poetry. 23. Female Writers. 24. Fiction for a Pur- 
pose. 25. Theological and Biblical Writers. 26. Church 
Histories. 27. Jurisprudence. 28. Other Authors. 29. 
The Outlook. 

I. The Success of a Literature depends quite 
as much upon the number and intelligence of its 
readers as upon its authors. Though in theory writ- 
ten to please, it should in addition be joined with 
the useful ; and, whether in prose or poetry, ought 
to exert an influence that would make one the better 
for reading it. 

The Colonists — the germs of the American na- 
tion — brought with them, to a certain extent, the 
culture, the education, the refinement of the England 
of that day. This influence led them, even in ad- 
vance of the mother-land, to introduce public schools. 
In New England these were begun as soon as need- 
ed, and, within less than thirty years from the first 



IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 187 

landing at Plymouth, they were established on a 
firm basis (1647) — the first instance in Christendom 
when the civil government put in practice the train- 
ing of an intelligent people by educating all its youth; 
the result has been a nation of readers. 

2. The Literature of the First Century of 
the colonial period was but a rcllection of that of 
England ; this arose naturally from the intimate re- 
lations maintained between the colonists and the 
mother-country, and in no respect were the former 
more dependent upon the latter than in this. Though 
some books and numerous pamphlets were written 
during this period, yet scarcely a treatise, nor even 
a pamphlet, survives except as a curiosity ; they were 
elicited by local causes, and were of temporary in- 
terest, and, properly speaking, had no material influ- 
ence in moulding the characteristics of our present 
literature. 

3. We now come to Jonathan Edwards (1703 — 
I757)> tl"*^ metaphysician and theologian ; the first 
American writer to attain a European reputation. 
With him properly begins American literature, as 
the influence of his writings passed over the colonial 
period into the present time. Edwards wrote a 
number of books, two of which are to-day deemed 
standard works ; the one on The Religious Affec- 
tions^ the other on the Freedom of the Will, and 
Moral Ageficy. The latter, especially, has been sub- 
jected to the severest criticism by the ablest theo- 
logians and philosophers from time to time, yet in 
its main positions it still remains apparently as im- 
pregnable as ever. At thirteen Edwards entered 
Yale College Thoughtful beyond his years, a meta- 
physician by nature, he studied and appreciated 
Locke on the Understanding. In after-years he dis- 
played in his writings a wonderful power in unravel- 
ling the mysteries of the human mind. 

4. The Influence of Edwards was clearly 



iS8 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

seen in the theological literature of the succeeding 
half-century, and in the writings of certain theolo- 
gians of New England : Drs. Samuel Hopkins, a 
pupil of Edwards, and Nathaniel Emmons, and 
Timothy Dwight, grandson of Edwards, and Presi- 
dent of Yale College. The latter's Theology Expiai7ied 
and Defe?ided was published near the end of the cen- 
tury. It was a series of popular sermons, and had 
an almost unbounded influence upon the religious 
public, who in that day read, it would seem, more 
theology in proportion than they do now. Dr. Dwight 
differed from Edwards on some points, yet in the 
main holding the same views. This work passed 
through many editions both in this country and in 
England. The writings of these men had much to 
do in shaping the theological opinions of that period. 
This branch of American literature has been always 
one of importance. 

5. Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790), born in 
Boston, the son of a taLow-chandler, but of limited 
means, so that at ten years of age the son was taken 
from school to aid his father in supporting the fam- 
ily, which consisted of seventeen children. Fond of 
books, the thoughtful boy even then showed that 
practical wisdom which lias rendered him famous. 
He chose the printer's business, thinking it would 
give him greater facilities for reading. At fifteen he 
began writing for the New E?igla?td Coura?it, a paper 
published by an elder brother, who treated him 
harshly; and young Franklin, at the age of seven- 
teen, selling what books he had, set out alone to seek 
his fortune. He came to Philadelphia, where he 
obtained employment as a journeyman printer, mean- 
time plying his pen incessantly, and always accepta- 
bly to his readers. In seven years he became the 
proprietor of a newspaper. In this he wielded a 
power in society, in politics, and in literature.. 

He became a benefactor to the city of his adop- 



IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 189 

tion by his efforts in founding a Public Library, Phil- 
osophical Society, and an Academy — the germ of 
the present University of Pennsylvania. He wrote 
many essays and pamphlets on various subjects, in- 
cluding scientiiic and moral, meanwhile publishing 
for twenty-five years Poor RichanVs Almanac. In 
this he inculcated his notions of economy, which had 
a very beneficial effect upon the people. PI is wri- 
tings had a marked influence upon the literature of 
the times; and, even when actively engaged in the 
public service, he always found time to do good by 
means of his pen. He was noted for his keenness of 
perception and common-sense ; his imagination was 
quick, but not extravagant ; his mental constitution 
so evenly balanced that he rarely, if ever, made a 
mistake as a diplomatist or as a statesman. 

6. A Change. — Quite a change came over the 
literature of the period between the close of the 
French War in 1763 and the beginning of the Revo- 
lution in 1775. Questions pertaining to civil liberty 
and the rights of the colonists crowded out all oth- 
ers, and the discussions on these absorbing themes 
engaged the writers, the preachers, and the orators 
of the times, and gave tone to the literature. Promi- 
nent among orators in these discussions were James 
Otis, John and Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts ; 
in New York were Alexander Hamilton and John 
Jay; in Virginia, Patrick Henry, James Madison, 
Thomas Jefferson, and others. The numerous 
speeches and state papers, and other political wri- 
tings, of these statesmen and their compatriots, are 
among the treasures of our political history. The 
collected writings of George Washington alone 
amount to twelve large volumes; these consist of 
addresses, messages, and letters, all written in a con- 
cise and clear style. 

7. The Federalist. — The period from the close 
of the Revolution to the adoption of the Constitu- 



igo AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

tion and inauguration of Washington was noted for 
the many discussions on the form of government to 
be adopted for the whole country, and for the pro- 
duction of the celebrated Essays., now a standard 
work known as the Federalist., written by Jay, Madi- 
son, and Hamilton. These Essays had evidently a 
great effect upon the minds of the people ; a striking 
instance of elaborate thoughts and views reaching 
the common mind by first influencing the more cul- 
tured classes, and through them the people. 

8. Newspapers and Journalists. — From the 
inauguration of Washington onward was a great in- 
crease in newspapers and journalists, of whom many 
were foreigners, and the first in this country to enter 
upon journalism as a profession. Their influence in 
literature was great, and continued till after the War 
of 1812 ; soon after which period the American wri- 
ters seemed to become disenthralled, and cut them- 
selves loose from so close imitation of English models, 
and bounded forward to attain success in a field of 
their own. The time came when political questions 
were less absorbing, and the people turned their at- 
tention more to reading on other and general sub- 
jects, and writers sprang up to answer the demand. 

9. Early Novelists. — The harbinger in the field 
of romance was Charles Brockden Brown (177 i — 
1810), a native of Philadelphia. His first work — 
Wieland — was published in 1798; this was followed 
by three others. As a writer he was graphic in style, 
not wanting in imagination ; but, perhaps owing to his 
continued ill-health, his stories leave a sombre rather 
than a cheery impression. He is said to have been 
the first American author to follow literature as a 
profession, devoting much of his time in writing for 
a periodical — The Literary Magazine — that he had 
established. 

Then comes James Fenimore Cooper (1789- 
185 1 ), a prolific writer of novels, thirty-four in num- 



IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 191 

ber, besides several other works, one of which is an 
elaborate history of the United States Navy. His 
novels, except the first. Precaution, founded on Eng- 
lish life, met with unexampled success. The Spy, his 
second, was received with marked favour both in this 
country and in England, where it was at once re- 
published ; each succeeding book added to his repu- 
tation. The scenes described were for the most part 
American, and the stories came home to the people. 
These books gave evidence of an original genius, 
while their moral tone was unexceptionable. 

10. Irving and his Friends. — Washington 
Irving (1783 — 1859), a native of New York City, 
stands preeminent among American authors. Blest 
with an easy, flowing style, and having acute percep- 
tions, he was able to express his thoughts with re- 
markable clearness, and withal pervading the whole 
with a quiet humour, or, when appropriate, with a 
delicate and touching pathos. No author has had 
so genial an influence on American literature. His 
writings were numerous — the Skeich-Book, perhaps, 
the most popular — they mostly consisting of sketches 
and short stories, a humorous history of his native 
city, and biographies, ending with a Life of Wash- 
ington — a work of love, and the crowning one of his 
life. 

Contemporary with Irving was James K. Pauld- 
ing, who for a time was associated with him in 
conducting a periodical — Salmagimdi — which was 
modelled somewhat after the British Essayists. Also 
Joseph Rodman Drake (who died young), the au- 
thor of The Culprit Fay — " the richest creation of 
pure fancy in our literature " — and the famous lyric, 
The A?nerican Flag. With these was associated 
Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790 — 1867). They formed 
a coterie of their own, of which Halleck may be 
designated the lyric poet. 

11. Theological Opinions. — American litera- 



192 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

ture has always been more or less imbued with theo- 
logical opinions, and sometimes debates have been 
elicited by differences in the interpretation of the 
Bible, and in the speculations of theologians. One 
of the most noted of these controversies, and which 
lasted for years, was the conflict between the Trini- 
tarians and the Unitarians, the former usually termed 
the orthodox. The centre was in and around Bos- 
ton ; but it finally took in New England, and after- 
ward extended to New York and New Jersey. In 
this controversy the people took more than usual 
interest, as they are accustomed in religious ques- 
tions, especially those involving vital principles. 

The first in influence among Unitarians was Wil- 
liam Ellery Channing (1780 — 1842), one of the 
most remarkable literary men of the period ; de- 
manding, by his great merits as a charming and 
vigorous writer, the respect of his opponents, and by 
his generous and noble nature the admiration and 
devoted attachment of those who knew him in social 
life. With Channing were associated Andrews Nor- 
ton, Professor of Sacred Literature in Harvard, and 
Henry Ware, " Hollis Professor " of Divinity in the 
same. In the orthodox behalf were found Dr. Sam- 
uel Worcester, of Salem, and Professors Leonard 
Woods and Moses Stuart, of Andover. The Uni- 
tarians established the Christian Examiner as their 
organ, and the Trinitarians the Panoplist. The two 
periodicals were read by thousands and thousands. 
It shows the general intelligence of the people at 
large, that these learned disquisitions were so much 
read and studied. Into this earnest, but upon the 
whole courteous, controversy others were also drawn ; 
and Lyman Beecher, in the prime of his strength, 
took part ; while the outside theological world — those 
comprising the Calvinistic wing — were also drawn in, 
and Professors Archibald Alexander and Charles 
Hodge, of the Presbyterian Seminary at Princeton, 



IX ] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 193 

took part. Meanwhile the ranks of the Unitarians 
were recruited by Drs. Orville Dewey, William 
H. FuRNESs, and Andrew P. Peabody. 

12. Historians. — In the dei)artment of History 
our literature is rich, and in this respect the last 
half-century has been prolific. The histories of 
William H. Prescott (1796 — 1859) and John 
LoTHROP Motley (1814 — 1877) pertain to foreign 
countries, as do in part those of Francis Parkman. 
These are all recognized as standard works. The 
first wrote the History of Ferdinand and Isabella^ 
Conquest of Mexico, Conquest of Peru, Life of Philip 
II., and other works ; the second wrote The Rise of 
the Dutch Republic, the History of the United Nether- 
lands, and the Life of John of Barneveld ; and the 
last wrote France and En^^land in America, and Pon- 
tiacs War. 

George Bancroft (1800), Richard Hildreth 
(1807 — 1865), and George Tucker, of Virginia, 
have written elaborate histories of the United States. 
The first, in twelve volumes, including the Forma- 
tion of the Constitution, brings the history to 1787 ; 
the second brings it down to 182 1, in six volumes; 
the third goes over nearly the same ground as the 
second. The histories of the United States, for the 
use of schools, are very numerous, among which 
those of LossiNG and Quackenbos hold a promi- 
nent place. Patton's Concise History of the A7?ieri- 
can People is designed to fill the place between the 
school histories and the more extensive ones just 
mentioned. John Gorham Palfrey has written a 
very full and complete history of New P2ngland. 
Jared Sparks has written brief biographies of many 
prominent Americans, and also edited the writings 
of George Washington, in twelve volumes, and those 
of Benjamin Franklin in ten, and likewise the Diplo- 
matic Correspo7idcnce of the American Revolution. 

13. Poetry. — American poetry may be compared 



194 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

with that written in the mother-land within the last 
half-century, rather than with that of any former 
time. During this later period the more frequent 
communication between English and American au- 
thors and readers led to a literary sympathy, which 
allured the poetry of the two countries into similar 
forms of thought and choice of subjects that required 
similar treatment. 

William Cullen Bryant (1794 — 1878) in his 
poetry is an interpreter of Nature, and equally happy 
in religious sentiment and love of freedom. All that 
he has written has been with great skill and unweary- 
ing care. His short poems upon subjects drawn from 
Nature come home to the hearts of his readers. His 
life was a busy one. Precocious as a boy — for at 
the age of ten he began to write verses for a neigh- 
boring country paper — he never relaxed in his in- 
dustry as a writer and editor, both literary and polit- 
ical, and no doubt he was the happier for it. Even 
when he had passed beyond the age allotted to man, 
he translated, with a poet's grace and appreciation, 
both the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807) began 
his literary career early, and, not trusting alone to 
the inspiration of genius, has ever been a diligent 
student. He has deservedly acquired great popu- 
larity both in America and England, where his wri- 
tings are usually republished. He wrote prose with 
as much success as poetry, though by the latter he is 
better known and appreciated. In his writings are 
found purity of sentiment, nobleness of thought, and 
a deep sympathy with humanity. His minor pieces 
have gone into almost every intelligent household in 
the land, and have had influence for good. Many 
of his poems are on American subjects; this aids 
in making them national, and in promoting a taste 
for a home literature. Such poems are an incentive 
to patriotism. Who does not know the Fsalm of Life, 



IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 195 

The Reaper and the Flowers ? or who has not read 
Evangeline^ or been fascinated with the peculiar 
rhythm of Hiawatha ? On the fiftieth anniversary of 
his graduation (1875) from Bowdoin College he read 
a strikingly beautiful ])oem, ATorituri Salutamus, full 
of manly, generous feeling and noble thoughts. He 
has written several prose works, and made a transla- 
tion of the Divine Comedy of Dante, deemed far supe- 
rior to any former one. 

John Greenleaf Whittier (1S07) has been 
characterized as the poet of freedom and humanity, 
and richly he deserves the compliment. During the 
antislavery discussions, his poetry, by its defiant and 
spirited tone, exerted great influence ; and during the 
Civil War his soul-stirring strains sounded through 
the land, animating the friends of the nation. His 
later poems are Tent on the Beach, Snow Bou/id, The 
Vision of Echard, and others. 

In this connection belong Oliver Wendell 
Holmes (1809) and James Russell Lowell (1819), 
both professors in Harvard, and both filling an hon- 
ourable place in literature ; both humourists, but 
far more; each writing successfully both prose and 
poetry ; subtile critics, genial but kindly severe ; both 
interested in the Atla?ttic Monthly, the latter for a time 
its editor, and also of the North American Revieiv. 
Holmes has written a great number of poems, none 
long, and several books in prose, as The Autocrat of 
the Breakfast Table, The Guardian Angel, and others. 
Lowell has written a Fable for Critics, The Biglow 
Papers, Among niy Books, and many others. He has 
been American Minister to Spain, and also to England. 

14. Subjects and Readers. — Hosts of writers, 
male and female, are now assiduously cultivating our 
field of literature, the greater number of whom draw 
their inspiration from scenes partaking of domestic 
life rather than from antiquity or classic ground, or 
from foreign lands. The majority of those who read 



196 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

the poetry and light literature of the day are not 
found so much among the highly educated, but 
among those, in this respect, the middle classes. 
Their minds have not been trained to the higher 
exertion of thought induced by laborious study; but 
they are by no means deficient in general intelligence, 
and are thereby able to appreciate the beautiful in 
Nature or in its description. This great class find 
in genuine poetical thought, whether in the garb of 
poetry or in the form of prose, an echo to their own 
feelings and sympathies in descriptions and senti- 
ments drawn from domestic scenes, and find emo- 
tions delineated which they recognise as belonging 
to themselves. There are millions such, whose only 
mental luxury is appreciative reading. They are 
by no means confined to fiction, but are also led to 
read works of a more substantial character. 

15, Periodicals. — Our writers of fiction have 
increased greatly within the last quarter of a cen- 
tury. This class of literature has received an im- 
pulse from the establishment of periodicals — monthly 
or otherwise — of an advanced literary character; it 
also has had influence in moulding the public taste, 
and well it may ; in them are found some of the best 
authors, American and English, side by side, engaged 
in instructing their readers. This is one of the best 
features of these literary times, that the minds of the 
reading public are thus brought in contact with the 
best thoughts of the age, properly expressed in clas- 
sic English, thus training the minds of the people 
for a still clearer appreciation of literature, and a 
higher plane of general culture. Among this class 
of writers woman sustains her part with tact, great 
zeal, and success. A graceful versifier, she writes 
the greater part of the poetry of the papers and peri- 
odicals. 

16. Newspapers. — In connection with this 
should be mentioned the literature of the newspaper, 



IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 197 

aside from its merely furnishing the news of the day. 
In them are often found discussions of important 
questions relating to the improvement of society or 
its material progress. These articles are written by 
able men, and frequently in a style graceful and 
racy, and often vigorous and trenchant. Thus the 
paper becomes a power for good in diffusing knowl- 
edge, especially in the notices of books, which treat 
of so many subjects — history, travels, scientific dis- 
coveries, and the moral and industrial movements 
of the times. The majority of readers are unable to 
purchase all these books thus noticed, nor have they 
time to read them ; but by this means intelligent 
men and women can obtain a fair knowledge of 
books, and of the topics of which they treat. 

17. Miscellaneous Writers. — There are a host 
of writers who treat of miscellaneous subjects, and, 
if space permitted, would deserve mention. Their 
labors are not without reward and success in their 
respective fields in promoting a high moral tone of 
culture and refinement in social life. 

18. Political Discussions. — The debates in 
Congress have had influence in moulding that por- 
tion of American literature which belongs to politics, 
as understood in the best sense; for the laws of the 
Government, and its policy at different times, have 
always interested the thinking portion of the people. 
This arises from the nature of the case, when they, 
as voters, have to do with the government of the 
nation. 

It was a brilliant period in this field when Henry 
Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Robert 
Y. Hayne, and others, discussed questions of nation- 
al importance. These discussions have been re- 
ported, and are valuable as specimens of eloquence 
— the contrast between these great leaders is very 
characteristic. 

The Contrast. — Webster's speeches, addresses, ar- 



igS AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

guments, and state papers, read to-day as if imbued 
with the spirit that inspired them at the moment of 
delivery — and they are almost as fresh to the read- 
er as they were to the hearer — they glow with the 
eloquence of thought. Henry Clay's are smooth and 
elegant, but need the grace, the animation of the 
orator, who, at the time, by his magnetism, allured 
his hearers into sympathy with himself, and com- 
pelled acquiescence in his arguments. Calhoun, 
more theoretical than practical, held his hearers by 
the fascination of easy, flowing sentences, that were 
designed to support fine-spun theories. His was the 
eloquence of metaphysics — though persuasive at the 
time, to his reader cold and plausible. 

The Antislavery Agitatio?t poured forth a stream 
of thrilling eloquence that astonished the country. 
The pungent addresses and writings of those who 
opposed the system sounded through the land, and 
from their very earnestness compelled an audience. 

Our literature is rich in the eloquence of states- 
men and orators on almost every subject capable of 
being elucidated by the living speaker. The works 
and writings of such men and scholars as Edward 
Everett, Charles Sumner, William H. Seward, 
and many others, are a treasure of great value to the 
nation. 

19. Essayists. — We have a series of writings, 
which take the form of essays, on all subjects con- 
nected with man, and in the elucidation of Nature. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803) — the author of sev- 
eral important works — may be considered the head 
of this school of writers. They have had great influ- 
ence in directing the American mind to the study 
of man in his relations to life and social aims. 

The finished style, for the most part, of these 
writers has had a beneficial effect in improving the 
literary taste of the reading public. Emerson has 
written Representative Men, Ejiglish lYaits, Letters and 



IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 199 

Social Aims, and other works. In addition to his wri- 
tings he has often delivered popular lectures. In this 
respect he has had many imitators, who have lectured 
on innumerable subjects to audiences in nearly all 
portions of the Union. These have been very influ- 
ential in encouraging the formation of literary associ- 
ations in numerous villages and towns of the country. 

George William Curtis is the author of a sa- 
tire on social life — The Potiphar Papers — and Trumps^ 
a novel. As editor his essays on current topics are 
very popular and instructive, while his criticisms are 
just and judicious. He is noted for his graceful 
style. Edwin Percy Whipple, in the main, may be 
termed an essayist. He has written much in review 
of books. Henry D. Thoreau, a recluse, who 
lived on a small lake near Concord, Massachusetts, 
wrote several works. Walden is reckoned his best. 

20. Later Novelists. — Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne (1804 — 1864) holds the first place in the 
ranks of American writers of fiction. He is most 
fascinating, possessing delicacy of taste and finish 
of style, combined with an insight into the human 
mind most remarkable. He wrote many stories illus- 
trating character, the subjects being taken from New 
England life at different periods, and also others 
based on foreign topics — among these. The House 
of the Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter, Tivice-told 
Tales, and others. His last work, The Marble Faun, 
is deemed by some his best. 

William Gilmore Simms (1806 — 1870), of South 
Carolina, wrote several novels, as well as poems; but 
by no means limited to these, as he was an indefat- 
igable worker, writing for magazines, and biogra- 
phies, and histories. His chief novels are Yemassee 
and the Partisan. He also wrote a History of South 
Carolina. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, occupied comparatively a new field — the anti- 



200 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

slavery. It was written for a purpose, and is by far 
the most popular American novel ever published, 
judging from its immense sale. Her subsequent 
works have been superior as to their literary mer- 
its — among these are The Minister s Wooing^ Oldtow?i 
Folks, Woman in Sacred History, We and our Neigh- 
bours, The Foganuc People, and others. 

21. Poets of the Present. — Among the po- 
ets of the present is Richard Henry Stoddard. 
Though engaged in business duties, he has diligent- 
ly devoted his leisure hours to poetry and general 
literature, having edited several collections of poetry. 
His pieces are generally short, The Hynin to the 
Beautiful being among the first he published. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman has written much 
lyric poetry. He wrote a social satire — The Diamond 
Wedding — Alice of Monmouth, and many other pieces. 
His review of the contemporary poets of England, in 
his Victorian Poets, has placed him in the first rank 
of appreciative and just critics. 

The Civil War was the occasion of much song- 
writing, some of which will remain as specimens of 
spirited composition, such as Sheridan s Ride, by T. 
Buchanan Read, and the Battle Hymn of the Re- 
public, by Julia Ward Howe. 

Of those who have been successful in writing 
both prose and poetry in a popular manner, per- 
haps Bayard Taylor is the most striking example. 
His first book — commenced in his twentieth year — 
Views Afoot, is a graphic description of his travels 
" on foot " during two years in the countries of Eu- 
rope. To this were added some eight or nine other 
books, some of travel and others of story. He com- 
posed his poems with astonishing rapidity. He died 
while the American Minister at the court of Berlin. 

Joaquin Miller and Francis Bret Harte have 
sung of the wild scenes of California in its ear- 
lier days. The descriptions of the manners and 



IX.] FROM i6^7 TO 1883. 201 

customs of the miners of those times have thrown 
around their writings the charm of novelty. The 
former's first efforts were the Songs of the Sierras^ 
and the Heathen Chinee of the latter had perhaps 
more readers than any other poem of the time. Both 
have written short stories successfully, and Harte 
one or two novels, as Gabriel Conroy, and a drama, 
Two A fen of Sandy Bar, and Condensed Novels. 

John CioDFREY Saxe, as a poet, is peculiar and 
successful in travesties and witty combinations of 
thoughts and fancies, which flow spontaneously, but 
are so aj^t and to the point that they are appreciated 
without an effort by the reader. For this reason he 
is one of the most pleasing of our poets who have 
been characterized as humorous. 

22. Novels and Poetry. — John Hay, a native 
of Indiana, wrote Jim Bludso, describing an original 
character in an original manner; and many other 
poems deemed equally striking. He has been com- 
plimented by having many imitators. He also wrote 
Castilia?i Days, a series of Spanish sketches. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, whose stories and 
poems have won for him a reputation as a poet and 
novel writer. From his first ballad. Baby Bell, and 
novel, Pf'udence Palfrey, to his last story, The Still- 
wafer Tragedy, is found the same care in the style, 
and the same twinkling humour. 

JosiAH Gilbert Holland has written many 
novels, the scenes of which are drawn from Ameri- 
can domestic life, as The Story of Sevenoaks, Arthur 
Bonnieastle, and Nicholas Minturn. As the editor of 
an influential magazine he exerted a power, for in 
his comments on current topics he was as free as he 
was fearless. 

Edward Eggleston, a native of Indiana, has 
taken a high rank as a writer. He has the advan- 
tage of throwing an interest around a class of sub- 
jects and state of society, a quarter of a century ago 



202 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

on the frontier, that was unexplored. His Hoosier 
Schoolmaster and Circuit Rider attracted attention — 
nor has the interest in his subsequent stories flagged 
— while Roxy^ his last, fully sustains his reputation. 
These novels, from the vivid presentation of their 
characters and the novelty of the scenes described, 
have been popular in England, and, it is said, with 
German readers. 

William Dean Howells, a native of Ohio, has 
derived many of his scenes from American life as 
found among the well-to-do and intelligent classes. 
He is remarkable for the finish of his style and its 
easy flow, and the delicate manner in which he delin- 
eates scenes that every one in the same state of so- 
ciety recognises as true to nature. Their Wedding 
Journey^ A Chance Acquaintance^ Venetian Life, and 
many other books, are among his writings. As an 
editor he is equally successful, while the moral tone 
of his writings is elevating. 

Two authors — Julian Hawthorne and Henry 
James, Jr. — bid fair as writers to sustain the reputa- 
tions of their fathers. Both are careful and consci- 
entious in their works, and compose them with liter- 
ary skill. Hawthorne has written Garth and other 
stories, also Saxon Studies j and James, Watch and 
Ward, The American, The Europeans, Daisy Miller, 
Portrait of a Lady, and others. The latter is a fre- 
quent contributor to American periodicals. 

Edward Everett Hale is the author of numer- 
ous stories, marked by the excellence of their plots 
and style. A Man without a Country exerted a good 
influence in favour of the Union in the time of the 
Civil War. He also wrote Philip Nolans Friends, 
and Ten Ti?nes One is Ten. 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson has treated 
of home scenes in his Out-door Papers, and other 
sketches ; Atlantic Essays, and a Young Folks' History 
of the Uiiited States. 



IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 203 

William Mumford Baker, of Texas, educated 
as a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, has oc- 
cupied a new field in his descriptions of the state of 
society in that section of the Union. His lifelike 
characters and their novelty have made his books 
very attractive, and, as true illustrations, they have 
been received with great favour. The New Timothy^ 
Mose Evaiis^ The Virginians i?i Texas^ and others, are 
among the productions of his pen. 

Charles Dudley Warner is a remarkably plea- 
sing writer. Like the red thread in the British naval 
cordage, an unconscious humour runs through all his 
writings; this makes them very attractive. His My 
Sufjuner in a Garden was received with great favour. 
This was followed by others, such as sketches of 
travels on this continent and in the East. He enters 
fully into the boys' life in his Being a Boy. 

2T,. Female Writers. — Space suggests only a 
mention of the progress in poetry by a host of female 
writers, as at present the great majority of poems 
written are by women. These are found in the 
newspapers and periodicals, and we hail them as 
harbingers of a bright future. Women also furnish, 
almost without number, short and graceful stories, 
the moral influence of which is excellent. This is 
their field ; that of history has been occupied, if not 
quite exhausted ; the scientific appropriately belongs 
to those who have qualified themselves by the labori- 
ous study of years. Woman may revel occasionally 
in theoretical speculations, but to her sympathetic 
nature and quick perceptions properly belong the 
delineations of character as found in domestic and 
social life ; and here she has an opportunity of doing 
good, and by her influence raising the standard of 
correct thought and literary excellence. 

Mrs. Adeline I). T. Whitney is happy in delin- 
eating girlhood, as in her Leslie Goldthwaiie. This 
has been followed by other stories in the same strain, 
18 



204 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

and all of a high moral tone, such as Real Folks^ 
Faith Gartner s Girlhood^ and Sights and Insights. 

Louisa May Alcott is remarkably popular as 
an author of juvenile books. She is at home in this 
class of writing, while there is lurking in her mind a 
power that may one day assert itself still more. Her 
Little Women was by no means confined in its great 
popularity to juveniles. 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps stands forth alone, 
displaying a power very unusual. She has published 
a number of books, all stamped with an originality 
of thought and forms of expression ; am.ong these 
The Gates Ajar attracted at one time much attention ; 
but by far her most powerful story is Avis, descri- 
bing the struggles of a noble woman. 

Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford is the author 
of several novels of high character on account of the 
style in which they are written, such as Sir Rohan s 
Ghost and New England Legends. 

Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote the 
story That Lass o' Low7'ie's. Though having written 
previously a number of short and pleasant stories, 
this book attracted unusual attention as an earnest 
of what the author could do. Her recent stories are 
The Haworths and Through One Administration. 

24. Fiction for a Purpose. — There is another 
branch of literature worthy of notice, not only for its 
excellence in its sphere, but for its good moral influ- 
ence — that of books in the form of fiction to incul- 
cate proper religious sentiment ; among these writers 
Edward Payson Roe is prominent, whose various 
novels have attained a decided popularity. He has 
written Barriers Burned Away., The Knight of the Nine- 
teenth Century^ Without a IJ'o??ie, and many others. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss, with pure Christian 
love, cultivated this field for a number of years, and 
led many " stepping heavenward." She was the au- 
thor of numerous books for children and youth, and 



IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 205 

Others of a more advanced grade. Stepping Heaven- 
ward has been her most useful book, having great 
popularity both in this country and in England. 
Having been translated into German and French, it 
is read much upon the Continent. 

The sisters Susan and Anna Warner have also 
laboured successfully. Commencing with The Wide^ 
Wide Worlds they have continued to write many 
others. 

Nor should we neglect to notice the literature 
that has grown up within the last third of a century, 
among all denominations of Christians, known as 
Sunday-school^ and the continuation of the same in 
moral stories for youth more advanced. 

25. Theological and Biblical Writers. — In 
theology and Biblical learning American scholars 
have taken a high position. Professor Charles 
Hodge, of the Presbyterian Seminary at Princeton, 
published the Systematic Theology — the labour of half 
a century — a work matured and sent forth without 
an equal. 

Professor Edward Robinson, of the Union The- 
ological Seminary, New York City, published the 
Biblical Researches^ the result of two personal visits 
to the Holy Land, and an examination, more thor- 
ough than ever before, of its antiquities, and of the 
places mentioned in the Bible. This became at 
once a standard work. It turned the attention of 
the religious world still more to the subjects of Bibli- 
cal interpretation. 

In this department Professor Addison Alexan- 
der, of Princeton, stands among the first. Rev. 
Albert Barnes also wrote expositions on many 
books of the Scriptures, especially designed to aid 
those instructing others. Dr. Phillip Schaff has 
accomplished much for the cause in editing Lange's 
Co?n?nentary on the whole Bible. Professor W. G. T. 
Shedd wrote a History of Christian Doctrine. 



2o6 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

In other departments collateral with Biblical 
learning Professor Tayler Lewis, of Union College, 
wrote Science a7id the Bible ; President James McCosh 
has written The Laws of Discursive Thought and 
Christianity and Positivism; President Mark Hop- 
kins, of Williams, Evidences of Christianity and The 
Law of Lave; President Francis Wayland, of Brown 
University, wrote Moral Science ; Dr. William R. 
Alger wrote the History of the Doctrine of the Future 
Life ; J. W. Dawson, LL. D., wrote on Nature and 
the Bible ; Dr. Andrew P. Peabody, on Christiajiity 
and Science ; Professor Thomas C. Upham, of Bow- 
doin, published the Elements of Mental Philosophy ; 
and President Noah Porter, of Yale, an elaborate 
work on The Hujnan Lntellect. 

26. Church Histories. — Dr. Abel Stevens has 
written a full Llistory of the Methodist Church ; Pro- 
fessor Charles Hodge and Dr. E. H. Gillett a 
History of the Presbyterian Churchy the latter also 
wrote a standard work on the IJfe and Tijnes of John 
Huss ; Dr. Henry M. Dexter has written the His- 
tory of Congregationalism; Rev. Dr. Perry, Bishop 
of Iowa, a History of the Episcopalians ; and Dr. Rob- 
ert Baird, Religion in America. 

27. Jurisprudence. — Chancellor James Kent 
wrote Commentaries on American Law ; Justice Joseph 
Story, on the Constitution of the United States ; Pro- 
fessor Henry Wheaton, on Lnternational Law ; ex- 
President Theodore D. Woolsey has also written 
0:1 Lnternational Law. These works are all standard 
on the subjects of which they treat. 

28. Other Authors. — Edgar Allan Poe 
holds a peculiar place in our literature. A man of 
melancholy temperament, and leading a sad and 
wayward life, yet his poetry was so original in its 
construction, and so melodious in its rhythm, as to 
induce many in that respect to imitate him. He 
is best knov/n by his poem The Raven. Richard 



IX.] FROM 1647 TO 1883. 207 

H. Dana wrote both poetry and prose ; of the for- 
mer, The Buccaneer is deemed his best. Nathaniel 
Parker Willis wrote a number of poems on scrip- 
tural subjects; these are deemed by many the best 
he has written. Paul H. Hayne, of Georgia, and 
Henry Timrod, of South Carolina, are noted — the 
former as a sonneteer, the latter for his war-songs. 
George Ticknor wrote a standard work on Span- 
ish literature, and biographies. George S. Hil- 
LARD is noted for the refined taste, purity of style, 
and high-toned moral sentiment in his writings, which 
consist mainly of orations, discourses, or essays. 

We have the philological works of William U. 
Whitney, George P. Marsh, S. S. Halderman; 
on political economy, the writings of Dr. Wayland, 
Henry C. Carey, Professor Perry, of Williams, 
and Professor Bowen, of Harvard ; on scientific 
subjects, Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, John W. Draper, Louis Agassiz, Mat- 
thew F. Maury, and Arnold Guyot ; on geol- 
ogy, Edward Hitchcock, James Dwight Dana, 
J. S. Newberry, and Joseph Le Conte; on bot- 
any, John Torrey and Asa Gray — but we must 
stop somewhere. Out of more than four hundred 
ajid fifty recorded names of authors who have aided 
in creating an American literature, very many wor- 
thy ones must be omitted in a short compendium. 

29. The Outlook. — There is no more cheering 
feature for the American literature of the future 
than the indications of a free and untrammelled 
spirit in taking subjects from our own life and the 
scenery of our own land. Still more important will 
be the influence upon the people themselves, in 
turning their attention to their own country, and 
in their learning to appreciate it the more. We 
have not many traditions to weave into stories, but 
we have Nature in her freshness and beauty, and a 
pure domestic life moulded by freedom of thought. 



2o8 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 



QUESTIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Sections i, 2. 

1. About what period does English literature begin ? 

2. Why may the English be proud of their literature ? 

3. Whence did the English come to Britain ? Give an account of 
the struggles between them and the natives. 

4. What became of the literature of the native Britons ? 

5. To which belongs the tale of King Arthur ? 

6. Explain in what respect the earliest English tongue differed 
from the modern. Give the illustration. 

Sections 4—7. 

1. In what manner was Old English poetry written ? 

2. What is said of the length of lines ? Explain alliteration and 
accent. 

3. Give examples of archaic forms. 

4. Explain the parallelisms. When and how did a French system 
creep in ? 

5. Give a summary of the changes made. 

6. What are the characteristics of the Continental poetry ? 

7. What is said of the Song of the Traveller^ Deor''s Complaint^ 
and Fight at Finnesburg ? 

8. Describe the Old English epic, Beoivulf. Give its story. 

9. Explain wherein lies its social interest"; its poetic force. 

10. How does its spirit appear in modern poetry ? 

11. Quote the description of the dwelling-place of Grendel. 

Sections 7 — 10, 

1. In what manner did Christianity modify English poetry ? 

2. How does the love of domestic life and of nature manifest 
itself ? 

3. What does Csedmon tell of Christian heroes ? 

4. Describe how the spirit of Woden was softened by that of 
Christ. 

5. Casdmon's poem proves what ? Who was Caedmon ? 

6. Tell the story of his life ; of his vision and his song. 

7. About what time was the poem written ? What were his sur- 
roundings ? 

8. Explain the poem ; show why it was a paraphrase, and of what ? 



II.] QUESTIONS, 209 

9. Point out the portions of the poem that contain the elements 
of poetry. 

10. What parts exhibit dramatic pt)wer ? How does he compare 
with Milton ? 

11. Name the characteristics of English poetry from this time 
onward. 

12. Tell the story of Aldhelm and his songs ; his songs to the 
traders. 

ij. Give a summary of the poem Judith ; what are its characteris- 
tics. 

Sections 11, 12. 

1. What was the character of the poems of Cynewulf ? 

2. Name and describe his lyric pieces ; also his religious poems. 

3. Describe the translations in the Exeter and Vercelli books. 

4. Does their spirit in faith go beyond the grave ? 

5. Were war songs written in the monasteries ? 

6. Name the two war songs of that period, and their counter- 
parts in modern times ; name the authors of the latter. 

7. Describe the fight of /Ethelstan and Anlaf. 

8. Give the story of the death of Brihtnoth. 

9. Why is the poem so English ? 

10. Explain why English war poetry for a time decayed ; what 
victory was won ? 

Sections 13 — 16. 

1. At what date and with whom does all English prose begin ? 

2. Name the subjects on which Baeda wrote, and his translation. 

3. Tell the incidents of his death. 

4. What invasion interfered with this literature in Northumbria ; 
and why ? 

5. Describe the influence of .Alfred the Great on English litera- 
ture. 

6. How did he promote learning ? 

7. Mention the works he gave to the nation. 

8. Who after .<Elfred continued English schools and had transla- 
tions made ? 

9. Name the first translator of a portion of the Bible. 

10. How was this revival of literature cherished, and under whom 
revived ? 

11. Describe the English Chronicle ; how long did it last ? 

12. What did it record, and what were its characteristics ? 

13. In whose reign did English poetry revive ? and in whose did 
English prose ? 

CHAPTER II , p. 22. 

Sections 17, 18. 

1. Name the length of time covered by this chapter. 

2. What effect on the English had the invasions of the Danes and 
the Normans ? 

3. Give the reeisons why the English absorbed the invaders. 

4. Why did the Normans ally themselves with the English against 
foreigners ? 



2IO ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

5. What was the effect on the EngHsh tongue ? 

6. What is said of the Moral Ode and the sayings of Alfred ? 

7. By what two works is the continuity of the EngUsh language 
at this time proved ? 

8. Under what three forms did English literature revive ? and in 
whose reign ? 

9. Explain why French literature influenced English poetry and 
not its prose. 

10. Into what classes did this poetical literature divide itself ? 

11. Between what two periods did religious poetry excel ? 

12. What influenced English story-telling poetry to become the 
poetry of the Court ? 

13. What did Chaucer write that shows him the best example of 
story-telling ? 

14. Describe the two struggles. What did England win ? 

15. How are we to trace the process of the change > 

Sections 19, 20. 

1. Through whom was England's civilization increased ? 

2. Explain the influence of foreign nobles and monks upon the 
religious life of the people. 

3. What desire grew out of this influence ? 

4. Describe Ormin's Ortnulum. What does it mark ? 

5. What is said of his ideal monk ? 

6. Designate the pieces that bring religious poetry to the year 
13C0. 

7. Explain how the Normans and English were drawn more 
closely together. 

8. Show what class of books or poems were written. 

9. Name the translations made, and who by ? 

10. Cursor Mundi : what its character, and its contents ? 

11. What prose work was translated ; what poem was written for 
the unlearned .> 

12. Describe the vision of Piers the Plowman. For what does he 
plead ? 

Sections 21, 22. 

1. What literary taste was brought into England by the Normans ? 

2. How were its writers styled ? 

3. Show in what respect these writings were changed in char- 
acter. 

4. On what subjects did they write ? 

5. Who was the first writer, who the last, and what the time in- 
tervening ? 

6. When did historical literature again rise, and through whom >. 

7. What change of feeling took place among the Normans, and 
how were they interested in English literature ? 

8. Describe the influence of this welding of the two people to- 
gether. 

9. Give the substance of the stories told by the Welsh priest. 

10. How were they received ? Tell what grew out of them. 

11. Compare them with Idylls of the King. 

12. Tell the story of these legends coming back to England. 



II.] QUESTIONS. 



Sections 23 — 25. 

1. Describe Layamon's Brut. What does he say of himself ? 

2. In what measure is it written ? How does it show change of 
languafje ? 

3. Name the stories translated from the French into the Eng^lish. 

4. In what did story-telling become French in form ? 

5. How long before the romantic poetry became naturalized ? 
Under what circumstances ? 

6. What is meant by the Cycles of Romance ? 

7. Tell how King Arthur and the Round Table obtained their 
place in English literature. 

8. Give an account of Charlemagne and his twelve peers. 

9. Explain the romantic fictions about Eskander. 

10. Show how the fourth romantic story came to be introduced 
into English literature. 

11. What other romances grew out of the taste thus formed ? 

12. In what two writers does the influence of this French school 
show itself .> 

13. In what translation did it come to its height } 

Sections 26—29. 

1. Describe English lyrics, idylls, and ballad?. Tell the story of 
Robin Hood. 

2. Give an outline of the idyll the OjjI and Nightingale. 

3. With what were these tinged } 

4. Give the substance of the satirical poem mentioned. 

5. What is said of political ballads and war songs } 

6. Explain the struggles of the literary English language. 

7. When was Englisn made the language of the courts of law ? 

8. Show how the Friars brought so many French words into the 
langoiage. 

9. What is said of the older inflections, prefixes, and endings } 

10. Give an account of the East Midland dialect, and its influence. 

11. What effect had the universities on the language ? 

12. What is said of Wiclif's translation ? 

13. Name the two authors who "fixed the language" in a clear 
form. 

14. Why was it called the " King's English " ? 

15. Give the contrast between Wiclif and Langland. 

16. Explain the religious revival ; the influence of the Friars. 

17. Name another influence. Give the discussion on equal rights. 

18. Enumerate the causes that brought misery upon the people. 

Sections 30 — 33. 

1. Who wrote Piers the Ploivman ? How does he describe him- 
self ? 

2. Give an account of his vision ; its characters and their sigfnifi- 
cance. 

3. Explain how he seeks a righteous life ; and his allegories. 

4. Describe the influence that his books exerted. 



212 ENGLISH LITERA TURE. [chap. 

5. What translation did much to "fix " our language ? 

6. When accused, in what language did he defend himself ? 

7. What is said of his active life ? 

8. To what year does this work come ? 

9. Describe John Gower's influence as a story-teller. 

10. In what three languages were his books written ? What does 
that indicate ? 

11. Give a summary of what he taught in his English book. 

12. Relate the incident with Richard II. 

Sections 34 — 39. 

1. Give a sketch of Chaucer's life. 

2. Under what influence were his first two books written } 

3. Explain the Italian influence on his poetry. 

4. What was the condition of Italian poetry at the time ? 

5. Whose tales did he read and translate } 

6. Notice the character of the changes he made in his trans- 
lations. 

7. Give a summary of the stories he wrote. 

8. Describe Chaucer's characters. 

9. State his definition of a gentleman. Note his love of Nature. 

10. Give an outline of the Canterbury Tales. 

11. What were pilgrimages in those days ? 

12. Of what do the Tales treat .? 

13. To what are his story and verse compared ? 

14. What elements did he weave into his English ? 

15. State the comparison drawn between Chaucer and Gower. 

16. Where in literature does Sir John Mandeville belong ? 



CHAPTER III., p. SO. 

Sections 40 — 43. 

1. To what point of time do Chaucer and Langland bring us ? 

2. What is said of Chaucer's influence .'' 

3. Give a summary of the poems and other writings of John Lyd- 
gate. 

4. Notice the minor poets of the period. 

5. What is said in respect to ballads and small poems ? 

6. Name the ballads sung by minstrels, and still known and found 
in books. 

Sections 44 — 46. 

1. Describe the controversy carried on by Pecock, Bishop of Chi- 
chester. 

2. Name the first theologian who wrote in English. 

3. What are the titles and character of the books written by Sir 
John Fortescue and Sir Thomas Malory ? 

4. Who was Caxton ? Give the title of the first book he printed. 

5. What effect was produced on the English language by his 
translations ? 

6. Give a summary of the influence of Caxton's publications. 

7. State the effect of the interest taken in classical literature. 



Ill] QUESTIONS. 213 

8. Describe the Paston Letters. 

9. What interest in books and hbraries did some of the nobles 
take? 

10. Name the classics translated. 

11. Explain the effect on the English of the revival of letters in 
Italy. 

12. By what means did the Nerv Learning increase in England ? 

Sections 47, 48. 

1. Show the influence of Henry VIII. on prose literature. 

2. Trace the influence of Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. 

3. What is said of English Renaissance ? 

4. Give an account of Roger Ascham's endeavors. 

5. What is said of Tyndale and his translation of the Bible ? 

6. Give a summary of the editions. Show the effect on the lan- 
guage. 

7. How did his translation reach America ? 

8. What was accomphshed by Cranmer and Latimer ? 

Sections 49 — 5 1 . 

1. Sketch the transition period from the old poets. 

2. Describe the Pastime 0/ Pleasure by Stephen Hawes. 

3. What is said of the writings of John Skelton >. His satire on 
Wolsey ">. 

4. What does he write against in Colin Clout ? 

5. Give an account of his other writings, and their influence. 

6. Explain his position in the transition. 

7. Define the Scottish poetry of the period. 

8. Give the outlines of Old Northumbria, and its history. 

9. Account for the peculiarities of Scottish poetry. 

10. Name and define its three characteristics. 

Sections 52 — 54. 

1. Compare the patriotism of the English and that of the Scotch. 
Show the influence. 

2. Account for the individuality of Scottish poetry. 

3. Describe The Bruce. Give the story of James I. of Scotland 
and his writings. 

4. What is said of Robert Henryson's poems ? Whom did he 
imitate > 

5. What influence did William Dunbar exert ? Show how. 

6. Name the translations of Gawin Douglas ; describe his writ- 
ings. 

7. Explain how Sir David Lyndsay was a poet and reformer. 

8. Describe his Satire of the Three Estates. Show his influence. 

Section 55. 

1. By whom was the Italian influence revived ? in whose reign ? 

2. What was the effect upon the English poets ? 

3. Give an outline of the poems of the " Amourist s^ 



214 



ENGLISH LITER A TURE. [chap. 



4. What is said of this style of verse ? 

5. What retarded the new impulse ? 

6. Name the period of English literature about to be ushered in. 



CHAPTER IV., p. 71. 

Sections 56—59. 

1. Enumerate the influences that led to the Elizabethan litera- 
ture. 

2. Give a summary of \}a.& first Elizabethan period, i. Prose. 2. 
Poetry. 3. Translations. 4. Theological reform. 5. Histories. 6. 
English tales. 7. Pageants and plays, how conducted. 8. Stories 
of voyagers. 9. Other writers. 

3. Give an account of the literature of the second period. 

4. Describe John Lyiy's Euphues ; its contents and style; its 
influence. 

5. What is said of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia^ and of the man 
himself ? 

6. The Arte of Poesie ; why written ? 

7. Name the other books on the subject. State their influence. 

Sections 60 — 63. 

1. Why was the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity written ? What are 
its merits ? 

2. Describe Lord Bacon's Essays. 

3. Tell of Hakluyt's voyages, etc. 

4. Trace the origin of English fiction. 

5. Give a sketch of Edmund Spenser, his youth and manhood. 

6. Notice the characteristics of the Shepheardes Calender. 

7. Give an outline of the contents of the Faerie Qtieen. What 
is the number of its parts ? 

8. Explain its influence on English poetry. 

9. Name and describe Spenser's minor poems. What is said of 
his later life ? 

Sections 64 — 67. 

1. Name the four prominent translators and their respective 
works. 

2. Tell of the influence of Italy, of Greece, and of France. 

3. Give in order a sketch of Elizabethan poetry, and show how it 
reflected the whole of English life. 

4. What is the character of Southwell's poems ? 

5. Give a summary of the love poetry of the time. 

6. What is stated of William Drummond .? 

7. Explain how patriotic poets arose in England, and their influ- 
ence. 

8. Name the three chief poets of this class. 

9. Describe Albion's England., and the subjects treated. 

10. Give an outline of Polyolbion. 

11. What changed the tone of this poetry ? 

12. Mention the causes that mark the change. 



IV.] QUESTIONS. 215 



Sections 68 — 74. 

1. Explain why the drama in England began in religion. 

2. Give the subjects of these plays in their order. 

3. Describe a " Miracle Play." What were " Mystery" represen- 
tations ? 

4. Explain what was intended to be taught in " the Morality." 

5. How is the transition traced from religious plays to the regular 
drama } 

6. Tell of John Heywood. Describe his Interludes; what grew 
out of them .> 

7. Name the sources from which these dramas were derived. 

8. Give a description of the first theatre and its accompaniments, 

9. In what metres were the plays written ? 

10. What was the number of the plays produced, and of the songs 
in them ? 

11. Give a summary of what was done by Lyly, Peele, Greene, 
and Marlowe. 

12. What were the characteristics of these dramas ? 

I J. Describe the strange contreists existing at tiie time. 

Sections 75—80. 

1. Give a sketch of Shakespeare; his domestic life; how he be- 
came a [playwright. 

2. What is the theory in respect to his first play ? when written ? 

3. Trace his progress from " touching up" old plays till the time 
he composed them himself. 

4. Mention his first three plays ; give their peculiar features. 

5. State what is said of his historical plays. 

6. Name the plays written during his second period. 

7. What change came into his writings ? 

8. With whom was he popular, and in what respect ? 

9. Under what circumstances did he write Hamlet, and other plays 
of his third period. 

10. Give a reason why in these he depicts the "darker sins of 
men." 

11. Give a sketch of his last plays; with what spirit were they 
written ? 

12. Give a summary of his work. Explain the Epilogue to Tlie 
Tempest. 

13. How is it visible how he was influenced ? 

Sections 81—85. 

1. In what respect did the drama decay ? 

2. What is the character of the plays of Ben Jonson ? 

3. What phase of human nature did they delineate ? 

4. Enumerate the plays he wrote. 

5. In what manner were the Masques written ? 

6. WTien did they attain their highest popularity ? 

7. Give the traits of Beaumont and Fletcher as writers. 

8. Describe Massinger as a writer. To what extremes did he go ? 

10 



2i6 ENGLISH LITER A TURE, [chap. 

9. Mention what is said of John Webster's manner of expression, 

10. Who was the last of the Elizabethan dramatists ? 

11. Give an account of the strolling players. 

12. With what " opera" began the new drama ? 



CHAPTER v., p. 108. 

Sections 86—89. 

1. Describe the change in prose literature after Elizabeth's death. 

2. In what consisted the new type of poetry ? 

3. The Advancement of Learning ; what impulse did it give ? 

4. What good work had science done ? 

5. Mention the historical literature of the time, 

6. What is said of Sir Walter Raleigh ? and other historians ? 

7. Name what subjects miscellaneous literature touched upon. 

8. Give an account of the religious literature. 

9. What is said of the founding of libraries ? 

10. Of theology — as represented by Jeremy Taylor and Richard 
Baxter ; Chillingworth and John Milton } 

11. Describe the style of writing during this time. 

Sections 90—95, 

1, Name the element that pervaded the poetry at the time. 

2, When did this spirit become less ? Give the illustration, 

3. Explain in what manner the fantastic style grew up, 

4. Describe the lyric poetry during the Civil War. 

5. Of what did the songs and epigrams treat ? When did they 
change ? 

6. Give a sketch of the satirical poetry of this period. 

7, Explain how pastoral poetry arose. 

8, Contrast rural with town poetry, 

9, What is said of the imitation of Spenser by certain writers ? 

10. Describe the religious poetry of George Herbert and Henry 
Vaughan. 

ir. Name the other poets; some Roman Catholic and some 
Puritan. 

12. What is said of the position of John Dryden ? 

Sections 96 — loi. 

1. John Milton, Describe his youth; his university life; his 
Studies at Horton. 

2. When did he visit Italy ? Why did he return to England ? 

3. Why did he write scarcely any poetry for twenty years ? 

4. Give an account of his controversial pamphlets and their influ- 
ence. 

5. What are the leading characteristics of Paradise Lost f 

6. Explain the beauty of the poem ; its ideal purity ; the degrada- 
tion of Satan ; and the sad image in the closing lines. 

7. Paradise Regained. What are its characteristics ? 

8. What the teaching in Samson Agonistes ? 

9. Point out the traits of mind that Milton exemplifies. 



VI.] QUESTIONS. 217 

10. Give a summar>' of Milton's poetic force and taste. 

11. Pilgrim's Progress. What is its spirit, and of what does it 
treat ? 

12. Account for this book still living in literature. 

13. Why is it the language of the English people ? 



CHAPTER VI., p. 123. 
Sections 102—104. 

1. Explain the change that occurred in the style of poetry. 

2. Why do certain poets write in a natural style .=• 

3. When national life grows chill, what effect is produced ? 

4. Account for Milton's influence on style. 

5. Describe the other influences mentioned. 

6. The Elizabethan poets wrote on what subject ? How was it 
treated ? 

7. How did Dryden and Pope treat man ? 

8. Give an account of the transition poets. What new interest 
was rising ? 

9. Contrast the two famous satires of this period. Describe each. 

Sections 105 — 107. 

1. Explain how Dryden becama the introducer of a new school of 
poetry. 

2. In what way is his change of opinions accounted for ? 

3. Give an epitome of his satire of Absalom and Ahitophel ; of 
the Hini and Panther ; and of his Religio Laid. 

4. What is said of his fables and translations ? 

5. The influence of Bishop Ken, how used ? 

6. Name the society founded ; give a summary of the sciences it 
was designed to promote. 

7. Mention the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. 

8. To what kind of knowledge was the intellectual inquiry of the 
Nation directed ? Explain the two sides taken. 

9. Give a summary of the theological literature of the period. 

10. Mention the names of the preachers and writers in the contro- 
versy in relation to Atheism and Deism. 

Sections 108 — no. 

1. Give an outline of the discussion on the science of government 
and social questions. 

2. From what point did Hobbes discuss these questions ? 

3. State the positions maintained in his Leviathan. 

4. Give an outline of the arguments on both sides. 

5. What science was for the first time partially treated ? 

6. John Locke. State his three positions in his Civil Government. 

7. How did he carry the same spirit into another realm of thought ? 

8. What is said of his Essay on the Human Understanding ? 

9. Sketch the miscellaneous literature of the time. 

10. Name the authors ; describe the essays, letter-writing, etc. 



2i8 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 

Sections iii — 114. 

1. Give an account of the literature known as that of Queen Anne 
and the first Georges. 

2. What opinions gave rise to it, and where was it concentrated ? 

3. Who were the Whigs and who the Tories ? 

4. Describe this party literature, and its effect upon pure liter- 
ature. 

5. Name the subjects discussed ; what was the influence on the style 
of English prose ? 

6. Alexander Pope. Give a sketch of his life and a summary of 
his writings ; their desigri and effect. 

7. Describe the Moral Essays^ the Essay on Matt^ the Satires .^ and 
the Epistles. 

8. What is said of his translations, and his love of literature ? 

9. Of the minor poets what is said ? Give a summary of their 
songs and ballads. 

10. What impulse rang the knell of criticism ? 

Sections 115 — 118. 

1. Give the four great names in prose literature at this time. 

2. What is said of each one and his writings 1 

3. Describe Bishop Butler's great work. 

4. Metaphysical literature. The Minute Philosopher ; what did it 
teach ? 

5. The Fable of the Bees ; tried to prove what ? 

6. Periodical essays ; their design ? Of what did the Tatler treat ? 

7. What is said of the Spectator ? The Guardian ? 

8. Their influence on the people ? Who were the principal writers "i 

9. In the drama, what new form was introduced ? 

10. From whom did the dramatic writers sometimes borrow ? 

11. What is said of the influence of Dryden on the drama ? 

12. In what form did the dramatists succeed ? 

13. How was the drama partially purified ? 

14. Of what was the stage made a vehicle ? 

15. How long did the influence of the Restoration on the drama 
last? 

16. With whom does the elder English drama close ? 



CHAPTER VIT., p. 145. 

Sections 119 — 121. 

1. With the rapid increase of what is paralleled the gro^vth of 
literature ? 

2. Give the four causes of this literary progress. 

3. What is said of the effect of a good style ? And also of the 
long peace ? 

4. Show the influence of the Press on the literature of the period. 

5. What right did the Press claim and obtain ? 

[Note : The freedom of the Press wcis established in New York 



VII.] QUESTIONS. 219 

thirty-seven years before this. See Patton's " Concise History of the 
American People," p. 221.] 

6. Explain the influence on English literature of French authors 
and German writers. 

7. Tell the story of Samuel Johnson. 

8. Give an account of his writings, and show their influence. 

9. What is said of Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, and Sir 
Joshua Reynolds ? 

10. Who originated the modern novel ? Define the novel. 

11. What field does it occupy for its subjects ? 

12. Give the characteristics of each of these authors. 

Sections 122, 123. 

1. Mention the first three prominent English historians. 

2. Give the titles of their histories, and the characteristic of each 
as to style. 

3. Name in order the merits and defects of each. 

4. Explain David Hume's theory of philosophy. 

5. Define what he means by his measure of virtue, and the influ- 
ence of the theory. 

6. Name his works in their order ; what may be inferred from the 
last two ? 

7. Give the theory of the IVealt/i 0/ Nations. What questions 
were involved ? 

8. Enumerate the effects of industry from 1720 to 1770. 

9. Give an account of the Social Reform ; its influence on litera- 
ture and on popular education. 

10. What are the characteristics of Edmund Burke's speeches and 
writings ? 

11. Show their literaiy merits and defects; account for their in- 
fluence. 

Sections 124 — 129. 

1. What city had become a literaiy centre ? 

2. State the effects of the doctrines of the French Revolution. 

3. Explain the influence of the great journals. 

4. Give a summary of the means used to educate the people. 

5. Name the Reviews and Magazines ; tell how they grew up. 

6. What made them a power > 

7. What literature received an impulse from the Wesleys and 
George Whitfield ? 

8. Name the writers on the evidences of Christianity. 

9. Mention the names of the Scotch mental philosophers. 

10. What was the influence of Aids to Reflection ? 

11. What was put forth by Jeremy Bentham ? 

12. Give what is said on books of travel. 

13. Explain the position of historical literature. 

14. Sum up what is said of the novel of this period. 

15. Give a sketch of each of Walter Scott's novels. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. 



CHAPTER VIII., p. 158. 

Sections 130 — 133. 

1. Give an outline of the two periods of poetry to be studied. 

2. State the influence of didactic and satirical poetry. 

3. Show the effect of the Greek and Latin classics in forming a 
more artistic poetry. 

4. What was the result of a careful study of the older English 
authors ? 

5. State the new element introduced ; give examples of the nar- 
rative, ballad, and romance. 

6. Cite Ossian and Chatterton. 

7. What reaction took place, and how ? 

8. Give the criticism on the style of poetry from Elizabeth to 
George I. 

9. On what two subjects have poets always worked ? 

10. Explain how man in connection with Nature furnishes sub- 
jects to the poets. 

11. Account for the change to natural description. 

12. Describe Thomson's Seasons ; what was its influence ? 

13. How did descriptions of natural scenery come to be interwoven 
with reflections on human life ? 

14. What influence had foreign travel on the love of Nature ? 
15- Instance Goldsmith and Collins. 

16. What is said of the Minstrel f What does the story resemble ? 

Sections 134 — 138. 

1. State how a change of subject began ; the individual man. 

2. Mention the various ways in which the poor were introduced 
into poetry. 

3. Give the titles of poems bearing on man as a subject. 

4. Scottish poetry ; describe the Gentle Shepherd. 

5. State what is said of the ballad in Scotland. 

6. Name the three poets of the second period of the new poetry. 

7. State the features of William Blake's poetry. 

8. Describe Cowper's poems. What element did he introduce ? 

9. What are the links that connect him with different periods of 
poetrj'^ ? 

10. How did he regard the brotherhood of man ? 

11. This led to poems on what questions ? 

12. Give a summary of the wonderful change. 

13. How are we brought face to face with the pictures of life in 
the poems of Crabbe ? 

14. Compare him with Cowper. 

15. Describe the Farmer's Boy a.nd the Rural Tales ; what was the 
influence of this style of poetry ? 

16. Who afterward took it up and added new features ? 

Sections 139, 140. 

1. Name the element restored to poetry by Robert Bums. 

2. Why did he sing of the poor ? Notice the dates of the three poets. 



VIII.] QUESTIONS. 221 

3. Account for liuman sympathy leading these three poets to have 
tenderness for animals. 

4. State what is specially marked in Burns. 

5. What spoiled his life ? 

6. What is said of the ideas brought into view by the F'rench 
Revolution in respect to man ? 

7. Explain the influence of these ideas of man's equality, and the 
reaction upon Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and Wcilter Scott. 

Sections 141 — 144. 

1. What is said of Southey ? What of Coleridge > 

2. Mention the influence on the latter of the defection of France. 

3. Name the principal poems of Southey. 

4. State the opinion in respect to the beauty of Coleridge's poetry. 

5. Describe VVordsworth's youth and training. 

6. In what way were the lyrical ballads published ? 

7. What is said of the Prelude and the lixcursion / 

8. How in accordance with his views was Nature in harmony with 
man ? 

9. Account for his minute observation of Nature. 

10. Show how he came to honor man as a part of the beine of 
Nature. ^ 

11. State his disappointment ; his hatred of oppression. 

12. Give the subjects of a series of his sonnets. 

13. Account for his being truly a poet of mankind. 

14. State what criticism must confess. Wherein is he like Milton ? 

Sections 145—147. 

1. Mention the three famous narrative poems of Waller Scott. 

2. What is said of his lyrics ? Describe how he represents land- 
scap>e in his word-painting. 

3. Analyze Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, What are his promi- 
nent poems ? 

4. Describe the Pleasures of Memory. 

5. Why is there no trace of the civil commotions of Europe found 
in the poetry of Rogers ? 

6. What are the characteristics of the poetry of Thomas Moore ? 

7. Name the underlying subject of his songs. 

Sections 148 — 150. 

1. Who were the post-revolution poets ? 

2. What is said of Childe Harold and other poems of Byron ? 

3. Give an analysis of his dramas, and of his hfe. 

4. For what purpose did he seem to write narrative poetry ? De- 
scribe Cain. 

5. Why did he write in opposition to social morality ? 

6. Describe him as a poet of Nature. 

7. Analyze his great power. 

8. What is the prominent idea in Shelley's Queen Mat ? 

9. Explain the poem Alastor. 

10. What are the sentiments expressed in the Revolt of Islam ? 



222 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [chap. viii. 

11. Explain -why his poetry became more masculine. 

12. What is represented in Prometheus Unbound ? State its ideas. 

13. Describe the Cenci and Adonais. 

14. How does Shelley's view of Nature compare with that of 
Wordsworth ? 

15. What was the character of his later poetry ? 

Sections 151, 152. 

1. Draw a parallel between Shelley and Keats. 

2. For what reason did Keats go to Greek and mediaeval life for 
subjects ? 

3. Describe his style. What does he mark in modern English 
poetry > 

4. Of what impulse does Keats mark the exhaustion ? 

5. Tell why indifferent thought was expressed in pleasant verse. 

6. State the effect of the reform agitation, and the religious move- 
ment at Oxford. 

7. What is said of Mr. and Mrs. Browning ? 

8. Give the characteristics of the former's sympathies. 

9. What is said of Tennyson's Idylls ? 

10. Describe the new class of literary poets. 

11. Compare in time Tennyson's Harold {\%'j']) with Caedmon's 
Paraphrase (about 670), 



IX.] QUESTIONS. S23 



QUESTIONS. 



CHAPTER IX. 
Sections i, 2. 

1. Upon what depends the success of literature ? 

2. What its theory, and should be its influence ? 

3. Name the advantages the colonists brought with them. To 
what did these lead ? 

4. When were public schools established ? What instance does it 
mark ? 

5. Describe the practice, and state the result. 

6. How was the literature of the Colonial period influenced ? 

7. Explain why that literature had little effect on the present. 

Sections 3 — 5. 

1. Give an account of Jonathan Edwards. Name the books h2 
wrote. 

2. What is said of the last one mentioned ? 

3. On what literature has his influence been marked ? 

4. Name the works of Timothy Dwight. How written. What 
their influence. 

5. Give the story of Benjamin Franklin. 

6. State his effcjrts in behalf of education, economy, and literature. 

7. Explain how he showed his practical wisdom. 

Sections 6 — 8. 

1. State how a change took place in the literature of that period. 

2. Name those who took part in these discussions. 

3. What is the character of their writings, and those of George 
Washington ? 

4. Give an account of the Federalist. How did it accomplish its 
work ? 

5. Explain why newspapers and journalists increased in numbers. 

6. How long did the influence of the latter continue ? 

7. State what the American writers of this period did for them- 
selves, 

8. Why did the people begin to read more on general subjects ? 

Sections 9, 10. 

1. Who was the harbinger in the field of American romance ? 

2. Describe him as an author. What the character of his wri- 
tings ' 



224 AMERICAN LITERATURE. [chap. 

3. He was the first American author to do what ? 

4. Who followed in this field ? With what success ? 

5. What elaborate work did he also write ? 

6. Why were Cooper's novels so popular ? 

7. Who stands preeminent in American literature ? 

8. In what consists the charm of Irving's writings ? 

9. Give a summary of his works. 

10. Who, as writers, were Irving's contemporaries ? 

11. After what was the Salmagundi modelled ? 

12. Name the chief work of Drake and its characteristic. 

Sections 11, 12. 

1. Explain the cause of different theological opinions. 

2. Describe the noted controversy. Where was its centre "i 

3. Give a sketch of Channing. 

4. What organs were established ? What is said of their readers } 

5. Name the other parties drawn into this controversy. 

6. In what two respects is our historical literature noted ? 

7. Name the authors who treat of foreign countries. Give a 
summary of their works. 

8. Name the authors of United States histories. What period 
do they cover ? 

p. What is said of the school histories and one other ? 
10. Give a summarj- of Jared Sparks's writings. 

Section 13. 

1. In what respect can we compare the poetry of America with 
that of England ? 

2. Describe the characteristics of the poetry of Br>'ant. 

3. What translations has he made ? 

4. State the literary career of Longfellow. 

5. What desirable qualities are found in his writings > 

6. Explain the popularity of his works. 

7. How has Whittier been characterised ? What the influence of 
his poetry ? 

8. Give a sketch of the two writers — Holmes and Lowell. 

9. Name their writings. 

Sections 14 — 17. 

1. What is said of the hosts of writers ? 

2. Where are the readers found ? How do they apply the 
thoughts of others ? 

3. Describe the luxury and the result. 

4. State how an impulse has been given to literature. 

5. Explain the features of these literary times. 

6. What is said of woman as a writer ? 

7. Give a sketch of the Uterature of the newspaper. 

8. Name the advantages derived from the notices of books. 

9. State what is said of miscellaneous writers. 



IX.] QUESTIONS. 225 

Sections 18, 19. 

1. Describe the influence of political discussions on literature. 

2. Name the men of a brilliant period. 

3. Give a summary of the contrast. 

4. What is said of the a{;itation ? 

5. Explain in what respect our literature is rich. 

6. Describe the influence of the essayists. 

7. What has been the effect of popular lectures ? 

8. Name the authors in this class. Their writings. 

Section 20. 

1. Give a sketch of Hawthorne's style, and name his writings. 

2. What is said of Simms's works and of himself } 

3. Why was Uncle Tom's Cabin so popular ? 

4. Name Mrs. Stowe's other books. 

5. State what is said of Stoddard's literary labours. 

6. Name Stedman's writings. Why does he stand high as a 
critic? 

7. Of what kind of writing was the civil war an occasion > 

8. Describe Bayard Taylor as an author. 

9. Explain the novelty of the writings of Joaquin Miller and 
Bret Harte. 

10. Give a description of J. G. Saxe's poetry. 

Section 22. 

1. What is said of Jirn Bludso ? How has the author been com- 
plimented ? 

2. State what is said of the stories and poems of T. B. Aldrich. 

3. Describe the author of Sevenoaks as a writer and editor. 

4. What advantage has the author of the Circuit Rider in his 
subjects ? 

5. Explain the secret of the popularity of his writings, 

6. From what class of subjects does Howells derive his scenes ? 

7. Describe his style and manner. Name his writings. 

8. Give an account of the t'lvo authors. Name their writings. 

9. What is said of the writings of E, E. Hale and T, W. Higgin- 

SOD ? 

10. Give a sketch of W. M. Baker's writings and their subjects. 

11. Explain the charm of Charles Dudley Warner's writings. 

Sections 23, 24. 

1. What is said of female writers ? What may be termed their 
field? 

2. Name Mrs. Whitney's writings and Miss Alcott's. 

3. State the character of Miss Stuart's style and writings. 

4. What is said of Mrs. Spofford and Mrs. Burnett as to their 
novels ? 

5. Describe the writings of E. P. Roe and Mrs. Prentiss as to 
their purpose. 

6. What literature has grown up recently ? 



226 AMERICAN LITERA TURE. [chap. ix. 

Sections 25, 26. 

1. What is said of Biblical learning and systematic theology ? 

2. Name the work of Professor Robinson. State its influence. 

3. Name those who have engaged in Biblical interpretation. 

4. Give the authors and titles of works written as collateral with 
Biblical learning. 

5. Name the authors and their works on Church history. 

Sections 27 — 29. 

1. Give the titles of the works on jurisprudence and international 
law. Name the authors. 

2. Upon what other subjects have many American authors written ? 

3. Give a summary of the outlook. 



THE END, 



^ 



BOTANICAL WORKS. 



Greene's Primary Botany. 

Illustrated. 4to. Cloth, $1.10. 

Greene's Class-Book of Botany. 

Cloth, $1.10. 

Henslow's Botanical Charts, 

Adapted for Use in the United States. By Eliza A. 
YouMANs. Six in set, handsomely colored. Per set, 
$15,'75. Key to do. 25 cents. 

J. D. Hooker's Botany. 

Forming a volume in the "Science Primers." 18mo. 
Flexible cloth, 45 cents. 

Eliza A. Youmans's First Book of Botany. 

Designed to cultivate the Observing Power of Children. 
With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. 16Y pages. 85 
cents. 

Eliza A. Youmans's Second Book of Bot- 
any. 

Uzao. Cloth, $1.30. 

Lindley and Moore's Treasury of Bot- 
any: 

A Popular Dictionary of the Vegetable Kingdom. With 
numerous Illustrations. 2 vols., 16mo. Cloth, $6.00. 
Half calf, $8.00. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street 



WORfo OF ARABELLA B. BUCKLEY. 



Life and her Children. 

By Arabella B. Buckley. With Illustrations. One 
vol., i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

The work, witli the author's usual felicity in captivating the youthful 
mind, discusses the structure and habits of the invertebrate animals. 



Fairy-Land of Science. 



By Arabella B. Buckley, author of "A Short His- 
tory of Natural Science," etc. With numerous Illus- 
trations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

"A child's reading-book admirably adapted to the purpose intended. 
The young reader is referre.l to Nature itself rather than to books, and is 
taught to observe and investigate, and not to rest satisfied with a collection 
of dull definitions learned by rote and worthless to the possessor. The 
present work will be found a valuable and interesting addition to the some- 
what overcrowded child's library." — Boston Gazette. 

" It deserves to take a permanent place in the literature of youth." — 
London Times. 

" So interesting that, having once opened the book, we do not know 
how to leave off reading." — Saturday Revie^v. 

III. 

A Short History of Natural Science and 
the Progress of Discovery, 

From the Time of the Greeks to the Present Day. 
For Schools and Young Persons. By Arabella B. 
Buckley. With Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

"The volume is attractive as a b'lok of anecdotes of men of science and 
their discoverirs. Its remarkable features are the sotmd judgment with 
which tlie true landmarks of scientific history are ^elected, the conciseness 
of the information conveyed, and the interest which the whole subject is 
nevertheless invested. Its style is strictly adapted to its avowed purpose 
of furnishing a text-book for the use of schools and young persons." — 
London Daily Neivs. 

" A most admirable little volume. It is a classified r/st/m/of the chief 
discoveries in pliysical science. To the young student it is a book to open 
up new worlds with every chapter." — Graphic. 

"The book will be a valuable aid in the study of the elements of nat- 
ural science." — Journal 0/ Education. 



D. APPLETON & CO., Pt;BUSHERs, i, 3, & 5 Bond Street, N. Y. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




r-"; ^ 


r-TfOKT, T< H. 4^^^^^^H 


€Mi::^i. 


r: . . .; r.:.S3^^^^^^^l 


PH=i^V>i<- 


' - '''t« '^^^^^H 


Pifcr'..!-; 


/• , 'l5i?fflE?^^^ 


G?^l^U.r..- 




F-TV;:::; 




hK- . ■ 


. ; , ■: X"- 




■V* <x> Hspence^) 


V' 


; • ■ ''-'TOT!'^, 


h.' . 






^^ A. • . s^^^ 








::. ^ 


K^ ' 


•:,;..> i-js, ^S^^fl 


^Bs 


-. ^ :- v.; :-.,r, .•:- ,= ioraA.Br^..^, 


^HI-'' 


i.''^' -ijMBa 


^K 


'-.&=^ffiiH 






-:':■'■■■■': ■'Wli^9§ 


K- .. 


v-. ' ^:.: ::v..^.iv. 


x; /-v..., ^;^^: 


:i ^ ^.^-'i^ --:■•■ :ON» or, NtcltoL 



D. APPLETON & CO. 



